<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Sylvanas of the Sun by CatOnTheWeb</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178073">Sylvanas of the Sun</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatOnTheWeb/pseuds/CatOnTheWeb'>CatOnTheWeb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Exalted (Roleplaying Game), Warcraft - All Media Types, Warcraft III, World of Warcraft</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Lunar Exalted, Quel'Thalas (Warcraft), Solar Exalted, Violence, third war</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 07:41:31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,946</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27178073</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatOnTheWeb/pseuds/CatOnTheWeb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Death has come to Quel’Thalas.</p><p>It came in shambling corpses of rotting meat and fetid marrow. It came in crude war-engines that stunk of plague and butchery. It came in phantom spirits ripped from peaceful slumber to hate and haunt the living. It came in cowards turned traitor by fear of death and dissatisfied arrogance. The dirt blackened and died under the tread of Death’s endless hordes. Trees fell and were uprooted to make way for the everswelling armies. Grass wilted and withered as its taint seeped into the soil and rendered it unfit for the living. A dark scar stretched north through the land, so wide as to be the grandest highway ever made. Villages burned and defenses crumbled beneath the weight of enemies raised from their own fallen. One by one the elfgates fell as the mooncrystals were stolen, Ban’dinoriel was breached, and the Ranger Corps were pushed back and back until just beyond the very walls of Silvermoon City. Even now, refugees were fleeing through the gates, seeking shelter behind the mightiest walls this continent knew.</p><p>Death has come to claim the High Home of the Elves.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Dawn Battle</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Death had come to Quel’Thalas.</p><p>It came in shambling corpses of rotting meat and fetid marrow. It came in crude war-engines that stunk of plague and butchery. It came in phantom spirits ripped from peaceful slumber to hate and haunt the living. It came in cowards turned traitor by fear of death and dissatisfied arrogance. The dirt blackened and died under the tread of Death’s endless hordes. Trees fell and were uprooted to make way for the everswelling armies. Grass wilted and withered as its taint seeped into the soil and rendered it unfit for the living. A dark scar stretched north through the land, so wide as to be the grandest highway ever made. Villages burned and defenses crumbled beneath the weight of enemies raised from their own fallen. One by one the elfgates fell as the mooncrystals were stolen, Ban’dinoriel was breached, and the Ranger Corps were pushed back and back until just beyond the very walls of Silvermoon City. Even now, refugees were fleeing through the gates, seeking shelter behind the mightiest walls this continent knew.</p><p>Death had come to claim the High Home of the Elves. All that stood in its way was the battered, bloody remnants of the elite Farstriders. Proud soldiers who had stood against the forest trolls for millenia, now reduced to bare thousands in number. Behind them, arrayed on the walls and battlements of the city were all the defenders left to the capital of Quel’Thalas. The Bloodhawks, patrolmen and peacekeepers. The Silvermoon City Watch, men and women trained to break up bar fights and arrest petty thieves. And any other elf with any training in the ways of war, from aged elder to bright eyed youngblood. Some of the latter weren’t even three decades old.</p><p>As the Farstriders made ready to defend the gates, more and more were given weapons to defend the city. The elite rangers had paid dearly to hold the enemy back, secure the routes for the evacuated civilians, and warn the capital. Now their meager remnants would buy their home as much time as they could.</p><p>To the east, the sky was just beginning to brighten, the dark sky of night giving way to the day. In the privacy of her mind, Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner thought it would rise over the last day of the high elves.</p><p>She stood at the head of the ragged formation of her army, imposing and resplendent in the predawn. Her hood hung over her shoulders, blond hair tucked away behind long, pointed ears. Her bow of yew creaked as her grip on it tightened. She watched as the army of the dead advanced nearer and nearer, emerging from the treeline of Eversong Woods like a beast out of nightmare. The rotting carcass, the wailing spirit, the clanking machine. At the army’s head, a pale haired, sallow faced corpse rode atop a skeletal horse, eyes of ice-blue fire sitting atop an arrogant smirk she had grown to hate over the past weeks.</p><p>Arthas Menethil brought his mount to a stop just outside of bowrange, and behind him his army halted as one. One would think the ranks of the dead would be unnaturally still, but their moans and twisted groans filled the air, bodies twitching and jerking.</p><p>“I salute your bravery, elf.” The once human prince touched the flat of his blade to his brow in a lazy gesture. “But the chase is over.” And here she would die.</p><p>Sylvanas was no fool. She had fought against the trolls of Zul’Aman for decades. She had made the orcish horde fear the warriors of Quel’Thalas. She could see the ranks of the dead, could all but count how many of her kinsmen had fallen to this fel horde. Victory was a foolish dream here. But she would not yield, she would not bend. She was the Ranger-General of Silvermoon. A leader, a ranger, a warrior, a Highborn Child.</p><p>“Then come and face us butcher! Your hordes will not find frail prey. Anar’alah belore!” She would die, but she would die dearly.</p><p>The prince roared, and Death’s army surged forward.</p><p>Sylvanas pulled an arrow from her quiver and nocked it to her bow.</p><p>The air filled with the sound of a thousand strings growing taught as her soldiers mirrored her.</p><p>The undead Scourge poured out of Eversong Forest in an unending tide, roaring and raging as they grew ever closer to the last, desperate holdout of the Quel’Dorei.</p><p>Sylvanas took a breath. Held it. Released it.</p><p>The arrow flew from her bowstring.</p><p>She took her second breath.</p><p>And for a moment that stretched into eternity, the Dawn broke over the horizon.</p><p>Light roared to life in front of the gates of Silvermoon City. Warm flames of white gold filled the air, traced and accented in shades of rose red and pale violet, the colors of a clear dawn sky. They swirled around and within Sylvanas, wrapping her in the surety of the rising of the sun, of the Daystar Clad for War. On her brow appeared a ring surrounded by eight lines branching out, a sunburst forged in white gold. Behind her, the flames formed into the image of an ethereal army, ranks upon ranks of rangers standing ready for war, bows drawn and arrows nocked. Above them, a great phoenix flew, shrouded in the fires of rebirth swirling and spilling out in every direction, centered around the Ranger-General of Quel’Thalas. The undead horde, relentless and unbroken till now, stilled as the light reached them and awoke something that should have been dead.</p><p>They felt fear.</p><p>Sylvanas just stared, even as she felt the pulse of blessed light coursing through her veins. It was unlike anything she had felt before. It was a flowering hillside on a warm spring day. It was the desert heat sapping the strength of an invading army. It was a hearth fire that stood against the winter chill without faltering. It was a hall of healing in the aftermath of recovery, gratefully peaceful in its clean sheets and empty beds.</p><p>It was power.</p><p>Then the eternal moment ended. Time fell back down upon itself. The phantasmal rangers loosed their arrows. The phoenix of sunlight roared. The great image that stretched over the battlefield collapsed down into a raging bonfire surrounding Sylvanas. A thousand arrows flew through the mists of the shrinking fire and fell on the undead in a rain of barbed death.</p><p>Arthas roared and the undead horde charged the Farstriders’ lines. Shambling corpse and lingering spirit and rattling skeleton all screamed in rage and fear. The first volley fell on them like rain, and each shaft found its mark. Yet still the horde came.</p><p>Sylvanas didn’t even need to think. She was a ranger, a soldier, a warrior, and the power that pumped in her ears and filled her arms guided her hands. Arrows found their way to and from her bowstring without thought, without hesitation, one after the other singing through the air with such speed the eye could not see them. The thwmps of her bow snapping back from each shot so loud and so close together, it was as if she was playing a simple tune on an instrument. The song she played was one of death. Arrow after arrow pierced through the lines of the restless dead like bolts from the siege ballista abandoned in the long retreat into Quel’Thalas. Each shaft pierced through three or four bodies at time, tripping and knocking others to the ground where the limbs shattered and their backs broke. Her Farstriders’ arrows brought many of the undead down, never to rise again.</p><p>But Sylvanas felled more.</p><p>Her quiver was empty in but a moment. She hesitated, then laughed at her own foolishness. A true archer needed no arrows.</p><p>The well of power in her surged, and an arrow made of golden sunlight formed between her fingers. She drew the phantom arrow to her cheek so that feathers brushed on her skin like a summer breeze, and let the shaft fly through a hulking abomination of patchwork skin. It roared and toppled to the ground as death claimed it once more, crushing many others under its bulk.</p><p>A horse’s neigh cut through the air. The cry was of empty graves and winter's chill, of bones left on a snow covered wasteland, and Arthas was before Sylvanas, his face a rictus of anger as his mount reared. A jagged steel blade came down, runes glowing with baleful blue light, and the Ranger-General threw herself to the side. Another arrow of light formed in her hand and was in the air, knocking Arthas’s follow-up strike off course.</p><p>The living dead rushed past the two commanders, crashing into the Farstriders even as the front ranks smoothly drew swords. Bolts of shadow and ice flew overhead, traded between the undead necromancers and the Farstrider mages.</p><p>For a moment Arthas and Sylvanas circled each other as their armies fought, waiting for just the right moment.</p><p>Arthas moved first. With a kick of his hands his undead horse surged into a charge. Sylvanas dove into a tumble between its iron shod hooves and as she came up in a twirling rise, three phantom arrows lanced from her bow and into the prince’s shoulder. They sunk deep into metal and corpse flesh before, lingered for a moment, and dissipated into wisps of sunlight.</p><p>Arthas roared, his blade whirling around and forcing her back, clearing space. But she didn’t need to be close.</p><p>The next two shots pierced the skull of his mount, and it crashed to the ground in a whimpering rattle. The blue light faded from its eyes and the skeleton stilled.</p><p>“Warriors of Quel’Thalas!” Sylvanas roared, “Do not give up! Fight, fight for all that you hold dear! Fight to bring fear back to these creatures and return them to the Light. Tal anu’men no Quel’Dorei!” Sylvanas felt the sunlight within her stretch out. It rode her words through the air and dipped into her soldiers, infusing them with just a hint of the power that filled her.</p><p>“Selama no Talah!” The Farstriders called back, and fell into the enemy with greater strength and ferocity. Their swords glinted with the light of dawn, and where they struck necrotic flesh fell to the earth.</p><p>“I don’t know what trick you’ve pulled Woman,” Arthas spat out as he rose to his feet. “But it won’t save you or your wretched people. The Scourge will swarm over the walls of Silvermoon like a tide and drown you in blood.”</p><p>Sylvanas grinned, blood pounding in her ears like war drums. The air was filled with the storm of battle; the crashing thunder of steel and bone and claw, the after rumbles damned mourning wails and fury driven roars, and the underpinning of the ceaseless downpour made in wood and magic. In front of her stood a fallen prince in blackclad steel, his armour etched with skulls and bones as testament to his bond with Death. His face was corpse pale and his eyes were alight malice for the living. Arthas roared, and lashed out with a burst of speed too fast to dodge.</p><p>Sylvanas’s bow rose to catch the blade, the arm interposing itself between them. Instead of cutting into and splintering the wooden weapon, the sword slid down and to the side, the tip just grazing past Sylvanas’s neck. She leapt back, two more phantom arrows flying out to glance off the prince’s armour and knocking him to the ground.</p><p>All around them the Farstriders pushed the enemy back. The battered, beaten, bloody ranger corps was retaking ground. Inside Sylvanas’s chest, hope bloomed through the rage and power that had gripped her. The spark, left suppressed and guttering by weeks and weeks of retreat, swelled to life, fed fuel by both the turn of fate and the heady fever rush of battle. The traitor coward, the fallen once human prince, was on the backfoot. He was injured, off balance, and his horde of horrors was staggering.</p><p>They could win.</p><p>“So long as I stand, Silvermoon will never fall!” Sylvanas shouted and nocked another arrow. The power rose inside her, so much that she could feel the well that was its source dropping low.</p><p>Arthas roared, backlit by the light of the rising sun piercing through the high vaulted branches of Eversong Forest. For a flash of a moment he was taller and grimmer, his face hidden by a great helm within which flickered the screaming shadows of the damned. On the brow of his helm was a great disk of pure darkness, black and all consuming. He stood on the shoulder of a great machine giant forged from twisted flesh and tortured steel. The air echoed with the heavy notes of a funeral dirge, a horn as deep as the mountains and as final as the void. Behind the cursed, forsaken figure, the sky had turned as white as snow, marred only by the bleeding red sun and the horrible, many-eyed thing swallowing it. Sylvanas blinked, and the vision was gone as soon as it appeared. Arthas, bare headed and smaller, clad in macabre armor that bore none of the horror and annihilation she had just seen, was leaping towards her. His runed sword led the way, glowing with blue light and already halfway to her breast.</p><p>The Ranger-General tried to dodge, tried to throw herself out of the way, but the sword pierced armor and flesh all the same. She screamed, and her pained voice pierced through the battle.</p><p>Sylvanas’s thoughts were jumbled. A white vale hung over everything, images flashing in and out of sight. She was...lying on the ground?</p><p>Her breath was heavy, heavier than it should have been. Why was that?</p><p>There was a shadow above her, pale haired and sallow face, ice blue eyes gleaming with malevolent joy. It spoke, but she couldn’t understand what he said.</p><p>Her lips parted, to say what she didn’t know. Blood dribbled out from her mouth, and a ugly, bubbling cough wracked her frame. Was she dying? No, how could- she’d been, was winning. She had to save, had to….her homeland…</p><p>The shadow threw its head back and laughed.</p><p>The power inside her swirled. The sunlight spun and spun and spun in a way she didn’t understand. It pushed against her insides, her legs, her arms, her fingers.</p><p>The fog fled from her mind, leaving only dawnlight behind.</p><p>The shadow raised up its sword. Blood dripped from the blade.</p><p>Her grip tightened around her bow. Light formed at her fingertips. All the power with Sylvanas drained from her and into her hand.</p><p>She would not let her homeland fall.</p><p>The arrow of sunlight flew from her bow at point blank range, imbued with the Judgement of Heaven. It crashed into Arthas’s chest, knocking him up and back. He flew through the air far over the ranks of his army and smashed to the ground. He crumpled like a broken doll</p><p>A cry swept through the ranks of the undead, a low murmur that gained into a discordant roar. Stitched corpses lathered at the lips and laid about at any foe they could reach. Many limbed spiders lashed out with claw and web, trying to ensnare whoever they could. Ghoulish corpses and skeletal servants rushed forward into the gap that had formed around Arthas and Sylvanas.</p><p>She needed to move, needed to stand up.</p><p>But even with the fog of pain gone, Sylvanas could barely move. Blood still flecked from her lips and shaking arms failed to leverage her to her feet. It seemed that either blood loss or the undead would take her.</p><p>Arms wrapped around Sylvanas and the front ranks of her Farstriders closed in front of her. As Sylvanas faded into the dark embrace of unconsciousness, she saw the backs of her soldiers as they made a fighting retreat towards Silvermoon’s walls.</p><p>-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-</p><p>The summoning circle glowed with the purple energies of the Nether. It pulsed once, twice, and then Anetheron and Detheroc were there, curiosity clear on their faces. Curiosity for Dreadlords at least. The great schemers knew better than to openly display their confusion like so many others did. But Tichondrius was the leader of the nathrezim. He knew the ways of his brothers and sisters better than they themselves did. And it was not as if the confusion was unexpected. He doubted their agents had even had a chance to report to them of what happened.</p><p>“What is it, Tichondrius?” Anetheron said. “It is not like you to call a meeting with so little warning.” With no warning, he meant.</p><p>“The invasion of Quel’Thalas has encountered a….setback.” Tichondrius said. The anger still boiled fresh in his veins.</p><p>“A setback?” Mephistroth said. “What setback? Last we’d heard the Scourge was days away from Silvermoon, and the Sunwell beyond. Did Arthas prove incapable of breaching its walls?”</p><p>“Indeed, although it is not entirely his fault,” Tichondrius said, his voice just on the edge of a growl. How it rankled that he could not place all the blame on the head of the Lich King’s champion. It would have made venting his frustrations on the death knight’s battered body all the sweeter. Not that he hadn’t done so, but shame and anger at his own agents’ failures made the flavor sour on the tongue. “It appears the high elf Ranger-General had access to some kind of power we were not aware of. She bested him in single combat, left him mortally injured, and destroyed a third of his forces near single handedly before that. Her thousand strong defenders killed another third.”</p><p>Both of his brothers paused. Neither bothered asking him if he was certain, they knew better than to doubt his informants and resources.</p><p>Anetheron brought a claw to his chin in thought. “None of my agents ever reported her having that kind of power,” he said. “Perhaps she has been imbued with the energies of the Sunwell? A conduit like Guardians of Tirisfal?”</p><p>“That was my first thought as well, but no.” Tichondrius said. “There has been no major disturbances in the Nether surrounding Quel’Thalas, beyond what was expected from the invasion. What's more, it seems none in Silvermoon had known of such a might before. The general expectation was that she would die buying time for more refugees and for more of the city’s defenders to be made ready.”</p><p>“How could this happen?” Mephistroth said. “Our agents have spent decades ferreting out the Quel’dorei’s strengths and weaknesses. There is nothing that should have gone unaccounted for.”</p><p>This time Tichondrius did growl, and his brother quailed back in fear. “I do not know Mephistroth. My agents are well aware of how displeased I am, and are scrambling to investigate. Regardless of what they find, the Northern Scourge lost many of its numbers, and is in need of new bodies if it is to take the Sunwell in a reasonable timeframe.”</p><p>“We cannot pull forces away from the southern troops,” Mephistroth protested. “Gilneas and Stromgarde still hold on and could recover if we let up the pressure. And allowing the mages out of Dalaran would be a poor idea in general. We’ll need to pull troops from Northrend.”</p><p>“Lord Archimonde will not be pleased,” Anetheron said. “The delay that’d create would be noticable.”</p><p>“We’re well aware,” Tichondrius said. “But we cannot force a summoning just yet, not without the ritual to throw the gates of Azeroth open. What other choice do we have?” The Night Elves and Dragon Flights wouldn’t notice one or two demons slipping through into the world, but any numbers as to make a difference to the invasion would become noticeable in a matter of months. Which, on the current timetables, would lead to defenses being prepared just as the Legion’s full forces set foot on the Eastern Kingdoms. The fight to Nordrassil would bear far too much risk at that point.</p><p>“There is another option.” Mephistroth had a calculating quiver to his wings There was a gleam in his face that Tichnodrius knew meant he had found a new angle.</p><p>“Spit it out, we are short on good ones as it is.” He would owe his brother a favor for just ceding the opportunity and initiative to him like that, but he was too frustrated for the normal plotting and scheming he normally took such joy in.</p><p>“I still have my agents within the Amani, several in high places even,” Mephistroth said. “And they report that Zul’Jin has pulled the tribes deeper into their mountain valleys as the Scourge breached the Greenwood pass. It seems they’re making plans to try and strike out along the Elrendar River. A few even trolls even speak of heading north, hoping to retake Quel’Danas.”</p><p>Tichondrius paused.</p><p>Mephistroth had been quite upset when all his work into infiltrating the Amani had proved unfruitful. The Forest Trolls were too weak to pose any real threat to the Legion, and they were too convinced in the strength of the Elfgates to launch another war any time soon. But here and now, his brother’s efforts could be the change they needed. “Yes, that could work to an appreciable extent. Our agents can guide the Scourge through the back passes. Zul’Aman could prove too difficult, but Tor’Watha and Web’Watha at least will be manageable as a first strike. If the Loa can be handled.”</p><p>“Oh they will be,” Mephistroth said, a gleam in his eyes. “And the fortress temple will fall. I assure you of that.”</p><p>“It’s settled, then?” Anetheroth said. “We have the Lich King press southeast, Mephistroth’s agents open the way and stymie the trolls, and we run interference from the Nether.” He sighed. “The delay will still upset Lord Archimonde.”</p><p>Tichondrius waved his hand in dismissal. “It’s the best we can do, and a paltry delay. He will not care. We must push fast, before whatever salvation that came to the Elves undoes our plans further. Lord Kil’Jaeden will calm his brother’s temper.” They could not let worry distract them. Failure to recover from this setback would promise much worse things than the setback itself.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sylvanas woke slowly. Her eyes fluttered open, then flinched shut at the bright light spilling in from the balcony window. After several false starts, she eased them open to be greeted with one of Silvermoon’s many dormitories. Soft violet and dark blue drapery hung from gold and silver hanging, filling the room and making it feel cozy. The curtains on either side of the window were thrown wide, letting sunlight pour in, and if she looked through it she’d doubtlessly be treated to the sight of well-kept courtyards, manicured gardens, alabaster statues, or other such frivolities. The high elves had always prided themselves on luxurious appointments with stunning views. Even for their most base of inns. Too much pride, in the Ranger-General’s opinion. She groaned, and the motion brought a flinch as her side throbbed in pain.</p><p>It was like getting stabbed all over again. The pain was a sharp sear between her ribs, just beneath the surface of the skin and unblunted by adrenaline. Then again the pain was welcome in its way. It meant she’d survived.</p><p>“Easy, Ma’am,” A familiar voice said. “There’s no need to move. You’ve already done more than enough for our kingdom.”</p><p>Sylvanas rolled so that she was lying on her back and looked to the side opposite the window.</p><p>“Theron,” She said. “Doing better?”</p><p>Ranger-Lord Lor’themar Theron, a lithe man with pale blond hair and a wry face, touched the bandages wrapped around the left side of his face. The healers had done what they could, but magic could only do so much so quickly. The eye itself was as good as gone, but the scar would be faint and without pain, given time. He was seated at a desk covered in paperwork, with only a single mana-crystal lamp to add to the window's light. He held a phoenix feather quill in his hands, ink dripping from the tip into a crystal well.</p><p>“Well enough,” he said. He scribbled something down on a piece of parchment and put it to the side. “Worse than you now I should think, given you’re awake.”</p><p>Sylvanas pushed herself into a sitting position, fighting the pain now that she was prepared for it. She had a loose robe draped over her shoulders and bandages wrapped across her sternum. The bandages didn’t have any stains, so they must have been changed at some point. The injury must have been severe, but by now it was barely noticeable. She must have been unconscious for several days at least, a week more likely. She didn’t ask if they’d won, because if they hadn’t she never would have woken up. And if the situation were dire enough to require immediate attention, Lor’themar would not be here doing paperwork. He'd be out in the field leading from the front, lost eye or no.</p><p>That meant the Scourge had been pushed back and was no immediate threat. Maybe some Lordaeron remnants had pushed through and reinforce them? Or perhaps Dalaran?</p><p>“I’d imagine,” Sylvanas said, voice dry. “I was already the better archer. Now, I’d dare say I'm better than you with a sword as well. Careful, or I might have to promote Brightwing up above you.”</p><p>Lor’themar smiled. “Ah but that’s the thing. Now that I am incapable of fulfilling my duties you will have no choice but to release me from them. I will never have to deal with paperwork or isolationist nobles ever again, and instead be free to wander the world as an adventurer, living as I want without care or burden.”</p><p>The two shared a laugh. Both of them loved Quel’Thalas too much to ever leave or abandon it. Despite the trials being a Farstrider could be at times, it was a duty they took pride in.</p><p>“Where are we?” She glanced out the window, eyes adjusted to the light now. She didn't recognize the buildings beyond the window.</p><p>“Northern edge of Falconwing Square, at the inn.” her second in command said. He reviewed another form, quill tapping on the lip of the inkwell. “Most of the troops are laid up here, where the healers can get to them more easily.” And there was the worry she had been avoiding.</p><p>Western Silvermoon had always been the place for the more common-born citizens of the city to live in, and as such most of the abbeys and churches were there, to better see to the people's needs. It was why Farstriders’ Bastion was there, separated from the Court of the Sun by the main thoroughfare. In her more uncharitable moments, she had seen it as the more isolationist members put the Farstriders there to distance themselves. The very purpose of the elite corps was to range beyond the kingdom’s borders and interact with the other nations. Technically she had a residence in the noble quarter of Eastern Silvermoon, but Lor'themar had put her here so that even unconscious she was by her soldiers. Her second in command knew her so well.</p><p>“How many did we lose?” Sylvanas asked without preamble. Now that she couldn’t put it off anymore, she might as well rip the bandage off at the quick rather than linger.</p><p>“Two hundred fifty-six died outside the High Gates,” Lor’themar said. “Some four hundred more joined the ranks of the injured and recovered. It remains to be seen how many of them will pull through.”</p><p>“Remains to- what are you talking about?” Sylvanas said. “Our healers aren’t inept. Any uncertainty should be gone by now.”</p><p>Lor’themar paused, and after a moment glanced at her, trepidation visible in his eye. “Ranger-General Windrunner, you’ve only been out for two days.”</p><p>Sylvanas blinked. That didn’t make any sense. She couldn’t have been out for just two days. Pain and injury were no stranger to her, and she’d learned over her centuries of life how long wounds took to heal, even with magical assistance. She’d been stabbed through the lung, just below the heart. Her blue eyes hardened, and she glared at her subordinate. Even bedridden, it was an intimidating sight. Her severe features; thin lips, sharp cheekbones, and angled brow, framed by long locks of pale blond hair that, somehow, had not become tangled during her time unconscious.</p><p>“Ranger-Lord Theron, this is not the time nor situation to joke about our medical situation.”</p><p>Lor’themar didn’t look away. “I am neither jesting nor lying, Ranger-General. You were in dire conditions when the first healers got to you, and there was a real fear that you’d slip away despite their best efforts.” He broke eye contact to cast about his desk, coming away a moment later with a medical report in one hand. He held it out to her, strong jaw set and singular eye serious. “This was written in the afternoon of the day before yesterday, eight or so hours after you were brought in.”</p><p>Sylvanas took the report, suppressing a wince as her side twinged in pain, then looked over the document. However, instead of providing answers, her bewilderment only grew. Her eyes skimmed down the document, flicking from one unbelievable statement to the next.</p><p>...Bloodloss stopped completely within an estimated two minutes of injury. Signs of natural regeneration and restoration. Muscles and nerves repairing themselves at an astounding rate. No visible drop in natural mana level. Similar processes observed in old, imperfectly healed injuries. Estimated time of full recovery with magical assistance: four days. Estimated time without magical assistance:</p><p>“Two weeks?!?” Sylvanas almost shouted as she came to the end of the document. “Two weeks to naturally recover from a stab through the lung?!”</p><p>“More than recover, to reach a fully restored body,” Lor’themar said. “The priests were positive that at the end of it, all the minor scars and nicks you've picked up would be completely gone.”</p><p>Sylvanas just stared at her second for several long moments. “What the hell happened to me?”</p><p>“The magisters were hoping you might know,” Lor’themar sighed. “They’ve been interrogating everyone on the battlefield who was even semi-lucid. About the only bright side to losing my eye is that I got to dodge them after the first interview.”</p><p>Sylvanas snorted, a bitter note slipping in. Of course, after years of ignoring the Farstriders and holding them at arm’s length, now the magisters were badgering the surviving remnants for every scrap of detail over something interesting. But then again, she was just as curious as them. That power that had awoken in her. It was so different from anything she had ever felt, different from the natural mana reserves all high elves possessed and different from the holy light priests and paladins used. She hadn’t thought about it much during the battle but now, here in this quiet room, she realized that despite its unfamiliarity, using the power had been the easiest thing ever. It hadn’t just filled her and enacted her will. It was her. Her muscles, her voice, her skills, her leadership.</p><p>When she’d been firing on the undead hordes, it had perfected her movements, turning the already skilled archer into something beyond belief. When she had encouraged her soldiers to fight harder, it had filled her voice. When she had struck that last, decisive blow against Arthas, it had swelled with her need.</p><p>Even now, she could feel it inside her, a part as close and familiar as her arm. At a thought, a small drop of power welled in her hand, forming and shaping into an arrow of golden sunlight. This arrow was her. Just like her skin. Her flesh.</p><p>“Ranger-General Windrunner,” Lor’themar said, staring down at the glowing shaft. “This power of yours could mean anything. We don’t even know where it came from.”</p><p>“I know,” Sylvanas admitted. She stared down at the arrow. It was long as her arm with a curved, narrow tipped head and dragonhawk feather fletching. Looking closer, it was an exact replica of how she crafted her arrows, different only in the uniformly gold color. “But what’s important is that it gave us a chance.”</p><p>With a flick of her wrist, the arrow dissolved into motes of light. Sylvanas turned and leveraged herself out of bed. Her side twinged with pain, but she refused to let it stop her. Her first strides were an unsteady step, step-step, step, step-step stutter as the twinge turned into flared flinches of agony, but she pushed through and forced her body to obey her will. By the time she reached her clothing, pushed into one corner of the room, her gait was smooth and even.</p><p>“Ranger-General?” Lor’themar asked. The concern was clear on his face, but he didn’t rise from his seat.</p><p>“I’m going down to where my soldiers are recovering.” She said. “I need to see for myself that they’re alright.” Her state was difficult enough to accept. But her troops….Two hundred fifty-six dead, over four hundred injured. Six hundred casualties during the battle, out of an already battered number of one thousand thirty-two. A week ago she would have said a force not breaking under those kinds of losses would be impossible.</p><p>Lor’themar knew better than to try to stop her or provide unasked for support, so instead, he just rose from his desk and stood beside the door to the room. He looked away as she traded her robe for a military dress uniform, a predominantly gold and blue suit with a half-robe meant to hang from her waist. There were thread-of-silver-and-gold panels on the hips and shoulders meant to evoke pauldrons and tassets, and the decorative lacework down the front was evocative of scale-mail. Thankfully the outfit was designed to be put on without help, and so dressing was a mostly familiar routine, even with the bandages wrapped around her middle. There were supposed to be gloves to go along with it, but she’d lost track of them at some point and never replaced them. She considered pulling out her honor tassels to hang from the shoulder but discarded the idea almost immediately. This wasn’t a formal soiree. Besides, they were always much more trouble than they were worth.</p><p>Sylvanas walked down the stairs of the Farstrider inn and out into the square proper, Lor’themar hovering just over her shoulder.</p><p>Farstrider Square was markedly different from when Sylvanas had last seen it. White marble buildings, adorned with golden eaves and soft blue roofing, still rose all around the edges, stark, uniform structures that to a stranger spoke of grand wealth for all of the city’s inhabitants. One familiar with the place would see the personalizations, from flower beds to statuary to little byways and wood structures hidden in the shadows, just outside casual observation. That was all the same.</p><p>The real differences were in the people. Instead of civilians milling about, going from cart to stall to shop in small groups or on their own, the entire area had been turned into a field camp of sorts. An open-air medical tent, more of a large pavilion, was pitched in the center and surrounded on either side by lines of simple ranger tents meant as places of sleep. Watchmen and lookouts milled about the edge of the courtyard, dressed in the red-gold armor of the Silvermoon city guard and the more casual, personalized outfits of her Farstriders. There were no civilians; the city’s refugees and citizenry confined to their homes or the residential areas under martial law. Almost every elf stopped to salute her as she passed them, and she and Lor’themar returned them.</p><p>Sylvanas could see flashes of light and hear the faint hum of power as she neared the medical tent. Then a priest bustled up to them with scolding words on his lips.</p><p>“Lady Sylvanas, you have no business being up,” the priest said. “You’re injured and have had only two days to recover. You need to rest!”</p><p>Sylvanas waved away his concern with one hand and tried to move past him, only to stop at the forceful grip he put on her good shoulder. He was glaring at her, dark blue eyes flaring with the weary frustration of a healer. To most, that expression combined with his sharp features, silvering hair, and pronounced browline would be intimidating. All soldiers learned to fear the ire of healers, and while she might be Ranger-General, she had still been in and out of their care over her many years of life. A part of her that wanted to listen to him, and the pain in her side only added to the reluctance to disobey.</p><p>Sylvanas’s hand came up and grasped the priest’s, and she met his gaze levelly. “Your concern is noted, and it does you credit. But I must first see my Farstriders. Then I will rest.”</p><p>The priest pinched his lips. He glanced towards the medical tent, then back to her. He sighed and shook his head. “Alright, but you will not exert yourself. I see you push yourself in any way, and Ranger-General or no, I’m binding to the nearest bed for the next week.”</p><p>Sylvanas nodded and hoped her bemusement didn’t show on her face. Priests as insistent as this one were rare.</p><p>When she stepped under the white silk pavilion, she was met with a grim scene. Minor wards and enchantments tried to keep the stink of blood and medicine out and mostly failed. Every bed she saw had a body in it, wrapped in bandages stained red and brown. Some slept, others groaned and whimpered in pain, and yet more just sat and stared, not seeing despite their opened eyes. No one else tried to stop her or Lor’themar, but neither did they make way for them. Instead, she had to make way for priests and priestesses hurrying about. A few glared at her, but nothing more. They carried bandages or bowls of simple soup, cast spells of healing light, or offered simple prayer and comfort to the lucid.</p><p>“Ranger-General Windrunner?” A voice said. Sylvanas turned and met the eyes of a red-haired girl, she’d guess no more than sixty years old by her bearing and the roundness to her features. Her eyes were a soft cyan, almost white in the flickering light of the priest’s healing spells. Her skin was pallid, and while it might have just been her natural tone, Sylvanas didn’t think so. The girl grinned and raised a shaking hand in salute. Two fingers and the lower half of the hand was missing, and the other was held to her chest in a tightly bound sling. “It’s good to see you up, ma’am.”</p><p>“At ease, soldier,” Sylvanas said. She didn’t let her sorrow at the ranger’s state show. The woman deserved better than her superior’s pity.</p><p>“I wish.” The ranger chuckled. “I can barely move without some muscle seizing in pain. But it’s thanks to you that I can even do that. Always knew you were just as good a leader as you were a pretty one.”</p><p>For a moment Sylvanas was taken aback by the casualness until she caught the slight slur in the woman's words and saw the looseness of her muscles. She was probably under a sedative spell. Healing spells took time to restore the body, often using its resources and reserves. The badly injured needed to be sedated to dull the pain and given the strength to wait out the recovery time. She’d been under such spells in the past, and it left one’s thoughts loose and their mouth without a filter.</p><p>If Sylvanas were a prissy noble who’d never set foot outside her magisterial tower, she’d have taken offense. As it was she found the compliments rather flattering, if unearned in both senses. She was hardly a standout beauty among the Quel’Dorei.</p><p>“I wish I could share your thoughts on my ability,” She said. “But three weeks of retreat say otherwise. And in the end, the best I could do was fight until I fell unconscious. Not much of a display of tactics or strategy. There are plenty in the kingdom who could have commanded better.”</p><p>The ranger chuckled. “And how many were fighting beside us? Not the King, and no one on the Convocation. Besides, you slowed them down for three weeks. Pretty damn impressive, given things. ‘Sides, I felt you out there, your strength. I felt you in my blade, in my army, encouraging me to keep going and bring justice for the dead. When Larvellion fell, I would have broken.” She laughed, hard and self-deprecating. “I almost did. But you, you kept fighting. So I should too, right? I don’t even remember how many undead my blade killed out there.”</p><p>Sylvannas smiled. She didn’t recognize the name Larvellion, but doubtless, it was one of the many, many soldiers who had died. “What’s your name, soldier?”</p><p>“Ranger Raela Dreambow,” she said.</p><p>“I’ll remember the name, Ranger Dreambow. Rest well and recover, we’ll need soldiers like you soon enough.”</p><p>Sylvanas left the medical tent shortly after that. Her steps were weaker now, the pain in her side persistent and loud in her mind. She ignored the way Lor’themar looked ready to catch her at the first hint of trouble. She’d talked to a few other conscious elves in there, and all of them had similar stories as Raela, regardless of injury. She’d certainly had her rangers’ confidence before. But in the face of the losses they had taken, it felt unearned. It had been a long time since the Farstriders had been pressed as hard as they had. Even the Horde had been a manageable threat, regardless of the support they got from the Amani. Here and now, they’d been pressed to the breaking point, and for all they knew the scourge was still strong. Yet her soldiers were filled with respect and hope. And to them, it was because of her.</p><p>That kind of faith was….disconcerting. And she wasn’t sure how to handle it.</p><p>“What’s the current state of the Scourge?” She asked, glancing over her shoulder to look at her second in command. She hadn’t asked before now because she had faith in his ability. But she needed a distraction, and to do that she needed to know the situation.</p><p>Lor’themar shrugged. “Unknown. They retreated soon after you fell unconscious. There was no pursuit due to the Farstriders pulling back to the gate. I sent scouts out this morning to see where they went, but so far it’s been mostly just counting heads and taking numbers since the battle.”</p><p>About what she had expected.</p><p>“And our forces other than the Farstriders?”</p><p>“The Bloodhawks have suffered losses but are still able to act as a fighting force. The Silvermoon City Watch and the Magisters have suffered few losses and could prove useful. However, the Convocation has been….reluctant to lend the last two to us.” He hesitated, and when she looked at him she could see uncertainty on his face. Something dark flickered within his remaining eye, and for a moment she saw anger stir beneath the surface.</p><p>“What is it?” She said. “You’ve given decades of loyal service to the corps. I’d like to hear what you have to say, even if it’s just a suspicion.”</p><p>Lor’themar’s lips whitened as they pinched into a thin line, and then he blew out a sigh of frustration. “I think An’owyn didn’t fall to the scourge. I think it fell from within.”</p><p>Sylvanas stopped. She shifted to face Lor’themar and leaned against the fence bordering Farstrider Square. The fact that it took the weight off her side and eased the pain was a barely noticed bonus in light of this accusation.</p><p>“The existence of the Mooncrystal Shrines is hardly a secret,” she said. Quel’Thalas had taken efforts to downplay and obscure the information over the millennia, but such a vital component of Ban’dinoriel couldn’t remain completely hidden for that long. Everyone knew at least a little about the kingdom's magical defenses. The Farstriders had compensated with disinformation and misdirection, falsifying the numbers of crystals and changing their hiding places every few years.</p><p>“But their locations are,” Lor’themar said. “Only a few even know when we shift one to a new place.”</p><p>“There were many spell casters among the undead, both human and elf,” Sylvanas countered. “The Scourge could have planned to just scour every inch of Eversong Forest and got lucky. After finding the first, the crystals’ resonance would have led to the others.”</p><p>“But even then it should have still taken much longer than it did,” Lor’themar said. “It took the scourge only a week to force their way past Elrendar River. Furthermore, when my scouts first got to An’owyn, it was empty. No sign of struggle. No sign of a fight.”</p><p>Sylvanas bit her lip. Lor’themar’s accusation was a heavy thing. But in truth, her suspicions agreed with him. As much as the Scourge had been an unstoppable force of death and destruction, they had overcome almost every defensive measure with ease. She didn’t want to consider some of her people a traitor, but more and more it seemed impossible to conclude otherwise.</p><p>“Ah, Ranger-General Windrunner!” A woman dressed in the robes of a magister shouted as she approached the two soldiers. They were fine robes, the material a rich velvet and silk dyed in shades of royal purple and burnished gold, the silver stitching so fine it would be invisible if it didn’t stand out in the patterns and traceries it made. Her staff was of even finer make, carved from a single piece of marble into a vine-covered branch with an amethyst ‘seedpod’ nestled into the top. Her red hair was carefully styled to hang loose and free, framing a handsome face with a strong jaw and an elegant browline. If Falconwing Square spoke of the communal wealth of Silvermoon’s citizenry, the woman’s entire appearance spoke to just how wealthy and powerful the Seven Great Houses were.</p><p>“Councilor Highcloud,” Sylvanas said, meeting the woman’s practiced smile with a flat glare. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”</p><p>The woman, Alaonara Highcloud, one of the seven members of the Convocation of Silvermoon, chuckled as she came to a stop.</p><p>“Nothing much, Ranger-General,” she said. “I was merely taking a small stroll and saw you were already out and about. I wished to thank you in person for your efforts in the Victory at the Gates. And you as well, Ranger-Lord Theron.”</p><p>Unlikely. The woman was one of the most powerful people in Quel'Thalas. She represented House Highcloud on the Convocation and had the personal loyalty of her family matriarch. Someone like that didn’t just ‘take a stroll’ in western Silvermoon.</p><p>Sylvanas grunted noncommittally as her second dipped in a bow. “The rest of the Farstriders are to thank as much as us, Councilor. Speaking of, our forces have suffered greatly. For now, the Ranger Corps only has us and the Bloodhawks. I was planning to petition the Convocation to lend us some of Silvermoon’s defenses to aid us in pushing out the undead.”</p><p>Alaonara blinked, her head quirking to the side in confusion. “I’m sorry, Ranger-General? Are the Scourge not broken and in retreat? Nothing more needs to be done to them. And even if that were not the case, the City Watch and Magisters are needed here, to prevent misfortune from befalling our people.”</p><p>The corners of Sylvanas’s face pulled down in a frown.</p><p>“Our people have suffered greatly.” She said. “Or did you miss the tens of thousands of civilians who passed through the gates, or the state of my Farstriders, or the number of elf corpses who had marched with the Scourge?” Long-held resentment at the governing council and how they had resisted and pushed against her advice flared in her breast. “If you had paid any attention to the reports of me and my soldiers, you would know that one defeat will not break them. Then again, I don’t recall seeing you or any other part of the Convocation aiding in Silvermoon’s defense while I made ready to sell my life.”</p><p>Alaonara’s eyes narrowed, the dark blue, almost purple color of her eyes flaring. “Careful with your words, Lady Windrunner, the Convocation of Silvermoon has no cowards in its number. We had reason to believe Prince Arthas had designs towards Sunwell Plateau, and so our priority fell to seeing to Quel’Danas’s defense.”</p><p>Sylvanas snorted. “A fine idea to secure a line of retreat, but better to leave that to experienced commanders rather than out of touch politicians.”</p><p>The Councilor’s smile gained a sharp, nasty edge. “Commanders like the one who spent weeks just retreating?”</p><p>There were several possible explanations for what Sylvanas did next. Rage at the insult. Pain from the still healing wound in her chest. Stress from weeks of retreat. Unease from the loyalty shown by the injured Farstriders. Frustration towards the Convocation and their isolationism. Fear of a traitor among her people’s number. The Councilor’s insincere grin.</p><p>Regardless of the reason, Sylvanas took deep pleasure in punching Alaonara in the face.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dusk hung heavy over the Danithas‘Thalas Mountains. It hung in the spires and crags, in the rocky peaks and grassy vales, the shadow of night stretching to cover everything. It buried into the pine needles that grew thick and plentiful where ancient evergreens stood proud and strong. It lingered in the chill air, strong and ever-present where the influence of the Sunwell grew weak. It festered in rafters burnt to cinders, in the ash and smoke wafting up into the sky. From charcoal frameworks to smoldering totems, the last light of day hung heavy in the ruin that was once a village. Wrecked, ruined, and with no corpses to be found anywhere.</p><p>Sylvanas didn’t know how to feel at the sight.</p><p>On the one hand, she had no love for trolls, and the Amani were a particular target of her ire. Centuries of internecine skirmishes flaring into brief bouts of brutal war between them left little room for sympathy in her heart. The tribes had raided patrols and merchants, preying on Quel’Thalas’s outlying settlements for food and resources. The Farstriders, similarly, had launched reprisal strikes of their own into the foothills and even, in a few cases, the mountains themselves. Even though it had been orcish axes that had killed most of her family, she held the tribes personally responsible. They had been the ones to lead the Horde through their mountain passes into Quel’Thalas proper, after all. To say their peoples hated each other was an understatement.</p><p>But this, this was genocide. For the past week, her troops had marched further into the mountains than any elf had in millennia. No one had stopped them. No one had challenged them. They had swept south from the northern passages like a snake racing through the underbrush. A dozen settlements and outposts had passed them by, each one wrecked and ruined. The worst had been Tor’Watha. The city was a fortress, and yet it had stood silent, gates open and streets deserted. They’d only found a few signs of resistance, anemic struggles that didn’t fit the abilities of the Amani at all. The high elves hadn’t stayed long before they continued their march south.</p><p>A week for her and the lightly wounded Farstriders to recover, and another week as they pursued the undead into the mountains with only the reluctant support of the King and the Convocation. How many had Arthas raised to his ranks in that time?</p><p>“Ranger-General, is everything alright?” Sylvanas glanced over her shoulder. Behind her, the three commanders of her little army stood around a travel table, maps and reports already scattered across its surface. Lor’themar hunched over one end, quill scribbling away as he reviewed supply and scout reports. The bandages had been replaced with an eyepatch, yet he looked as disgruntled as before. Even going out in the field, the paperwork pursued him. To his left stood Renthar Hawkspear, Ranger-Lord of the Farstrider Second Battalion. The black-haired man was the quiet, dutiful sort, and he had kept up with his responsibilities even though his command had suffered the most losses by far. Across from Hawkspear was the woman who had asked the question. Sylvanas didn’t know Ranger-Lord Elsuris Dawncaller well, but the brown-skinned, red pony-tailed woman was uncomfortable being here. The Bloodhawks had just under two thousand rangers, less than the Farstriders at full strength but now near three times their current number. However, their corps was meant for guarding and policing Quel’Thalas’s interiors, and what little large-scale experience they had came from the settlements they had evacuated in the face of the Scourge’s advance. On top of that, Elsuris had been a Ranger-Capitan up until a few weeks ago, when her superior had died during the Retreat. She had more experience administrating guard detachments than fighting.</p><p>“Yes.” Sylvanas turned and strode up to the table, sparing only a glance to where the troops were setting up camp in the valley. “I’m just worried.”</p><p>Lor’themar snorted. “We all are.” He grabbed a sheet of parchment and held it up for the other’s attention. “With how fast we’ve advanced into the mountains, our train has become stretched to a breaking point. With supplies as they are, we’re good for another two, maybe three days, but by then we’ll be beyond support from Silvermoon.” And the support they did have was bare. As Ranger-General they couldn’t stop her from leaving, and unless they wanted what was left of their army to die they couldn’t cut all contact. But punching one of the highest authorities in the kingdom had consequences. “After that, we'll have to forage.”</p><p>“But we can’t stop either,” Renthar said. “The more time we give the Scourge, the stronger they’ll become. We have to catch up to them.”</p><p>“Won't that be soon?” Elsuris spoke like it was a question. “As you said, Ranger-Lord Theron, we’ve advanced fast into the mountains. The undead can’t be far away.”</p><p>“But other than the Amani settlements we’ve no sign of them. That worries me,” Sylvanas said. What also worried her was the speed of their advance. It felt beyond what her forces should be capable of. The Farstriders and even the Bloodhawks were both fine forces, and their organization and discipline were nothing to scoff at. But moving armies took time, especially through dirt paths and mountain trails. This was no march along Eversong’s main roadways. Yet her troops had held up surprisingly well. A dozen times over, Sylvanas had intuited problem points in the baggage train or foreseen some hazard in the terrain, even though she was completely unfamiliar with the territory. Her commands and directives had filtered down through her officers and seemed to impart some of her newfound skills to them. Again and again, the scout companies had found the best ways forward, their discoveries adding onto the Ranger-General’s insights. They’d be at Zul’Aman in only three days at this rate.</p><p>The only explanation for it was her new power, which was even more disturbing. Like a daytime sky growing overcast with clouds before restoring itself to its former glory, she had felt that strange energy rise and fall inside her. It wasn’t like mana nor any kind of magic she knew of.</p><p>Rather than being hard to use, it was near impossible to not use. It leaped to her will at the merest thought, infusing her body and the world around her with energy. She could look at a map and plan an advance, and without even realizing it she would draw on that well of power, of… of essence. Her mind would sharpen, the best path would be made clear. And like a well-trained soldier, the army would proceed. She could look at a few scratches in the ground and know, intuitively, what had transpired in greater detail than she ever had before. But these skills had let her army advance with speed, so there was nothing to do but accept it and move on.</p><p>“We can take precautions,” Renthar said. “But there is only so much we can do against the unknown, and the unseen enemy always poses the threat of ambush. Maybe we should increase the night watch?”</p><p>“With whom?” Elsuris gestured to the camp with one hand. “You Farstriders may be used to roughing it and unpleasant conditions, but my Bloodhawks aren’t. We’re already pushed to our limit, and everyone is grumpy with guard duty as it is. Even I know depriving our best soldiers of sleep is the last thing we should do.”</p><p>Sylvanas mulled over the words, looking out as the last of the tens went up. “We don’t have much choice. Theron, Hawkspear,” she said. “Could you two gather a couple dozen ranges that you trust to act on less sleep? We only need them as early warning, in case of a night attack.”</p><p>Renthar paused, then nodded. “I can think of a few names, Ranger-General. They’ve done long term missions in the Hinterlands. They can manage a few weeks of bad sleep.”</p><p>“I’ll see who I can find,” Lor’themar said. “Some of the ones I’d put forward died in the retreat, but there are a few left. I just need to review our rolls”</p><p>Sylvanas nodded. “See to that as soon as we’re done here. I want them watching the southern and northern ends of the valley by tonight.”</p><p>The meeting didn’t last long after that. Sylvanas and her officers had spent plenty of time and energy strategizing their advance and planning for any battles might come. Still, by the time they had finished, the dusk of early evening had descended. The Blue Child had yet to rise, but the White Lady was just past full, the waning gibbous moon shining and bright and silver in the navy blue sky as the last rays of sunlight vanished over the horizon. Stars twinkled to life, forming constellations and nebula partially hidden by the mountain peaks. Sylvanas could still see they were the same as what she saw when looking up from Windrunner Spire. Cookfires and torch posts lit up the camp as she walked through it, a warm red contrast to the silver light above.</p><p>Sylvanas stopped to grab a bowl of soup from one of the cook fires before retreating to her tent. She ate with a speed that had become second nature, barely registering the thin, watery taste as it slipped down her throat. There were some vegetables and gamey meat mixed in, but overall it was unsatisfying. She spent the time looking over the camp, watching as her soldiers clustered around campfires, traded stories, and gambled their pay away.</p><p>Sylvanas gnawed at the one last bite of her meal, a particularly tough piece of meat. Despite their attempts at relaxation, there was a tenseness about her soldiers. Weapons sat close to hand, never more than feet away. Armor was only partially gone, hauberks and breastplates still strapped tight even if gauntlets and helmets had been removed so that the hungry could eat. Glances were shot out into the night, looking for any danger hidden in the shadows of trees and crags. The Bloodhawks were new to a war camp in hostile territory, and unfamiliarity bred worry. The Farstriders had their confidence shaken. Their reduced numbers and greater experience sharpened their worry, all too aware of the problems they could face. Still, despite that fear, it struck her that morale was high. They had advanced far and fast into the mountains, the enemy fleeing before them.</p><p>And no one had forgotten the Victory at the Gates.</p><p>Sylvanas caught soldiers casting discrete glances at her, trading whispered words that they thought beneath her notice. In all honesty, a month ago they would be. But now, with her body and being blessed by strange power and strength, their voices were as clear as birds on a summer morning. The way they spoke of her wasn’t reverent, but it was a near thing. The respect of centuries of service and family lineage had been made stronger by a legendary battle many of them had witnessed and her miraculous recovery. A well-earned reputation had been forged into something close to the legends of old.</p><p>Sylvanas gave up on wearing down the piece of meat and swallowed, rose from her seat, and hurried out into the camp’s many pathways. Her thoughts still followed her. As did the whispers. As did the looks. As did the almost palpable respect and awe.</p><p>Before she realized it, the Ranger-General had found herself at the edge of the camp, beneath the shadowed and ruined eaves of the troll village. It was times like this she missed Alleria. They had fought and argued as all siblings did, but they were still close and had confided in each other more than once. It was why her sister had felt free to shun the post of Ranger-General for becoming just a simple Farstrider. She’d know what to say to Sylvanas, what advice to give. Then again, she did run off to another world instead of staying in Quel’Thalas.</p><p>Footsteps approached, the crunch of boots falling on grass so soft as to be almost silent. Sylvanas turned and met Ranger-Lord Dawncaller’s eyes with her own. The younger woman stiffened, ears stiffening in surprise.</p><p>“L-Lady Windrunner.” Elsuris stiffened into a salute. “Apologies for disturbing you. I-I saw you and thought you were a normal ranger in need of- that is, I mean...”</p><p>Sylvanas chuckled and held up a hand, cutting her off. “I understand, Ranger-Lord Dawncaller. You saw an elf on her own, possibly in need of support. It speaks well of you.”</p><p>The woman ducked her head in embarrassment and muttered a quiet thanks. For a moment the two stood there in silence, just breathing in the cool night air. Elsuris shifted, glancing uneasily out into the dark. They knew each other to an extent as subordinate and superior, but in truth, there wasn’t much other than professional courtesy. Much of Sylvanas’s time attention had been on the Farstriders and wider troop movement, the affairs of the Bloodhawks left largely to their Ranger-Lord over the years. Elsuris had come up in a few reports, but nothing more than that. And in the week of marching there had been little time to chat.</p><p>Still, it was obvious she was troubled, nervous.</p><p>Sylvanas closed her eyes and looked up at the night sky. “This isn’t what you wished for.” At Elsuris’s confused hum, she continued. “Being out here, on campaign in enemy territory. None of us wished to face an army of the dead or see our country destroyed, but many become rangers to enter the Farstriders, and going beyond Quel’Thalas’s borders. But you didn’t.”</p><p>She looked down, and at the brown-skinned woman’s clear discomfort, hurried to append to her statement. “There is no shame in that. None. Wishing to stay as part of the Bloodhawks is an important, vital role for patrolling the inner territories of our kingdom. As much as we try there will always be threats and dangers of nature and magic within our territories.”</p><p>“I thank you for the encouragement Ranger-General,” Elsuris said. “And you are not wrong in either sentiment. A career in the Bloodhawks is a well respected one, and I have dreamed of going on any kind of campaign since I was a child. But I also never thought I’d be leading part of an entire war-host. Or fighting the corpses of my kinsmen. It is...overwhelming in many ways.”</p><p>“You’ve been handling things well though,” Sylvanas said. “Thrust into a position of authority, and yet you seem to be handling things fine.</p><p>Elsuris laughed, a bitter, near hysteric thing. “I just wanted to have a simple job and protect my family. I never wanted to be a soldier!” She paused after the admission fell past her lips, and blew out a long, slow sigh. “I like a job well done with efficiency and simplicity, and for a lot of the Bloodhawk’s that means either long, eventless patrols along Quel’Thalas’ roads, filling out reports that will only be looked at once or twice and then never again, or stalking some dumb predator through Eversong. I was good at the first two, and the latter rarely happened. Then Clearwind was dead and the other Ranger-Captains pushed me to take his place. I’m more used to filing reports than fighting. One moment I’m scrambling to organize a panicked retreat and evacuation, the next I’m fighting the scourge’s forward scouts, and then I’m marching away from Silvermoon’s walls, and at some point during all that everyone starts looking at me with respect and authority.”</p><p>Elsuris paused to take a breath and seemed to remember herself all at once. Her cheeks flushed dark in embarrassment.</p><p>“I apologize for the outburst ma’am. It was unprofessional.”</p><p>Sylvanas laughed. The humility of this woman. Elsuris had shown admirable skill and ability for one of her background. Maybe she was right and was not perfectly suited to her current position, but that would require a dedicated investigation they had neither the time nor need for. Elsuris had done all she could when it was needed. She was not used to the competence she had shown, and the unknown bread fear and self-doubt.</p><p>Much like Sylvanas’s new power.</p><p>Without prompting, the power in her swirled and swelled, and for a moment she feared that sunburst would flare to life on her brow. But no, it was her power. It was new, it was different, but whatever it was it was hers. What she had done with it were her own actions. The limits or consequences that came from her power was unknown, but that was no excuse to give in to fear.</p><p>“You are more than forgiven, Ranger-Lord Dawncaller,” Sylvanas said. “I will not tell you to not fear yourself. The power and abilities of your position are new to you, and the skills you’ve displayed unfamiliar. But do not doubt. Doubt is what stills you in the heat of the moment, slowing your blade and stifling your voice as indecision wars with action. Simply try to act as best as you can. That’s all I can ask of you.”</p><p>Elsuris mulled over Sylvanas’s words for several long moments before she nodded. Before she could say anything else, however, a horn’s cry rang out through the night. Then a bone-rattling roar filled the air. The roar was loud. It was mangled. It was filled with the chill of the grave.</p><p>And it came from every direction, surrounding the entire military camp.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Nock. Draw. Loose!”</p><p>The Ranger-Captain was not hurried in her commands. There was tension to her voice. A loudness that went beyond the necessity of an order. If one looked closely, they could see the forced way her muscles relaxed, decades of training demanding that she be at ease even in the heat of battle. Her breath came a touch too quickly. Her back was almost as stiff as iron. Her heart thudded loud in her ears. But she was not hurried in her commands.</p><p>“Nock. Draw. Loose!”</p><p>As one, her company nocked arrows to bowstrings, drew back so the fletching brushed their ears, and let go to take new shafts from their quivers. The released arrows flew into the night sky in a wave, arched up to block out the full moon, and fell back to the earth as a wall of barbed death.</p><p>Animated troll corpses fell with cursed roars and strangled groans of fury. The fel intelligences given by dark magic knew only rage and hunger even as they were released from their torments.</p><p>“Nock. Draw. Loose!”</p><p>The Ranger-Captain didn’t even pause to wish the dead peace. The next rank of undead was closer than their fallen kin.</p><p>“Nock. Draw. Loose.”</p><p>All along the edges of the high elf camp, it was the same. Rangers standing in blocks of a hundred formed into a great ring just behind a palisade of stakes. The darkness was kept at bay by flickering lanterns stuck just behind the front ranks. The rangers nocked, drew, and loosed their arrows on command. They stayed in time with each other, trading speed for effectiveness. The dead did not care for individual injuries or glancing hits, but an inescapable blanket of arrows was another matter. Behind each block, ballista fired as fast they could be loaded, teams wrenching back the arms to allow a new bolt to be nestled into the firing groove. They couldn’t see targets, the shambling abominations barely visible under the shroud of night, but a three-foot-long tree branch capable of cutting through ranks of dead trolls and elves forgave the sins of inaccuracy. Behind the front ranks, most of the reserves acted as lines of supply, quivers of arrows and bundles of ballista-bolts daisy-chained up to the front lines from the wagons they rested in. In ideal circumstances, those reserves would just be standing ready to reinforce where they were needed. But these weren’t ideal circumstances.</p><p>The troll village they had set camp next to was burning, flames fed by magic to completely burn away the wooden dwellings, protecting the high elves’ east flank and denying the enemy a point of approach. Not that they needed it, Sylvannas reflected bitterly as she stared down at the hastily made tactical map. She, Elsuris, and several lower officers stood around it, referencing notes and reports and distributing orders.</p><p>The fire and the torches gave them immediate sight, but the night quickly stole that away and left them uncertain of their enemy’s true numbers. That difficulty was, unfortunately, alleviated by the diseased corpses flung far over the backline, sometimes they got back up and had to be quickly put down. Intermittent bolts of shadow magic flew out onto the northern and southern fronts, not overwhelming but enough to tie the priests and what few mages they had down. No abominations yet, but those could just be waiting to press an opening.</p><p>The only good thing was that the undead had given the ambush away too soon. The forward scouts Lor’themar and Renthar had deployed had served their purpose, forcing the attack before all fronts had snuck close enough to the high elf camp. But they had so many arrows, no idea of their enemies, and no line of retreat if the battle turned against them.</p><p>“Get the twelfth company off supply duty and reinforce the western flank,” she said. “The tree covers giving the undead cover, they’ll be in close quarters soon.” The runner didn’t salute as he took off, just leaving at a dead run.</p><p>“Report from the southern front!” Another runner said. “Ranger-Lord Theron reports that the valley has funneled the undead into a killing field, but they’re still getting closer and now have wooden shields six feet across.”</p><p>Sylvanas spat out a curse.</p><p>“What heavy assets do we have left?” She said to Elsuris. The woman ran her hand over a nearby list and grimaced.</p><p>“We’ve already deployed all of our ballista and mage teams. There’s only the Third Fairbreeze and they’re,” she trailed with a helpless shrug.</p><p>Sylvanas didn’t need her to finish. The Third Dragonhawks of Fairbreeze were pretty much the only dragonhawk unit still functioning after the Retreat and had already sortied three times in the past hour.</p><p>They were ragged, tired, and needed rest. But they wouldn’t get that if the lines were overrun and they all died.</p><p>“Send them out for a strafing run, no more. Once the frontlines close coordinated fire will be impossible, and melee favors the enemy.” That was how most of her soldiers had died in front of the Gates of Silvermoon.</p><p>The essence inside Sylvanas swirled and swelled, and she welcomed the feeling. She had accepted this strange power, and it had let her draw this impromptu siege out for nearly two hours now. Her eyes darted to the line of units representing the northern front, where Renthar’s troops were dug in before the mountain pass, holding back the flocks of gargoyles trying to descend on them. If things went bad, they’d need to try and punch their way through that pass, and come out the other side savaged beyond recovery.</p><p>“What news from Hawkspear?” Sylvanas said.</p><p>“Nothing much,” A Ranger-Captain said. “His troops are pressed, but they’ve held strong so far and it looks like they will keep doing so. We might need to rotate some of his soldiers out if it keeps up, his soldiers haven’t had a break since the battle started.”</p><p>Even Lor’themar’s troops had had breaks, lulls as the press of undead slackened to allow the necromancers to reraise intact corpses and repair damaged troops. Between those pauses had been hectic fighting as the enemy rushed to close the lines. More than a few of his troops had been swapped with reserves to rest and recover. But Renthar’s front had been consistently on the edge of ‘pressed.’</p><p>The front that was their best chance of escape.</p><p>Her essence surged. With a moment of sudden realization, the strategy was laid bare before Sylvanas as clear as a sunny day.</p><p>“Dammit,” she cursed, snatching up her bow from her quiver and stringing it without a thought. “Elsuris, you have command. As soon as the Third is back, send them to the northern front, I might need the help.”</p><p>“What- but Ranger-General I-” Elsuris began to protest.</p><p>“No time,” Sylvanas shouted over her shoulder. “Again, you have command. Do the best you can!” Then she was gone, running and leaping through the camp and over obstacles like a gazelle. Light sparked in the air, and she the sunburst emblem form on her brow. She was their strongest warrior, their best asset, and if she could make it in time then she could still-</p><p>With a sound like crackling ice and roaring flame, the north edge of the camp lit up in an explosion of blue and white light. Debris and bodies flew through the air, underlain by screams and shouts.</p><p>Sylvanas blinked the stars from her eyes and cursed at what she saw.</p><p>Frost rimmed the great hole that had been made in the palisade, the ground ripped and torn from splash over from the attack. Already rangers were rushing to drag the wounded away and reform their lines while leaving the dead where they laid. They could be collected when there was a lull in the assault, necromancers needed time to reanimate the dead.</p><p>Before much could be done, however, an undead dragon landed in the center of the destruction.</p><p>Pure white bone stood out in sharp relief against desiccated skin. Its skull glowed with the baleful blue light of undeath, and in its chest, where a heart would have sat, was a core of the same color. The scales had no gleam to them in the firelight, raggedy purple rocks without shine or luster that stretched across a skeletal body barren of muscle and sinew, ripped and torn like rags tossed over a too-big mannequin. Arrows glinted off its body, necromantic magics stopping elf forged steel from finding purchase.</p><p>The dragon’s gaze fixed on Sylvanas.</p><p>An arrow of sunlight formed in her fingers and was in the air. It embedded itself in undead bone before exploding into shards of light that tore through the skull.</p><p>The dragon roared in pain it should not have felt. Instead of standing still, it threw its gargantuan body out of the breach and towards Sylvanas, over the lines of soldiers.</p><p>“Defend the breach, I will handle the dragon!” Sylvanas shouted, two more arrows flying from her bow. If the undead broke through the lines anywhere, they were doomed.</p><p>Sylvanas had to stop herself from laughing hysterically. She threw herself to the side, narrowly avoiding the dragon as it crashed through blocks of empty tents. It whirled to face her, gargantuan form ripping through wood and fabric like nothing. There was nothing in its eye sockets except the cold fire of undeath, but she felt the baleful intelligence flickering inside them. It hated her. It hated her and everything that ever lived. It wanted nothing more than to kill her and all she cared about.</p><p>A dragon.</p><p>Arthas had managed to kill a dragon and raise it to serve his host. Well, she had seen how effective he could be against both her people and the Amani. But that had been in war, strategy, not personal prowess. How had he killed a dragon?!</p><p>The sound of air rushing over bone was all the warning she had. Then a stream of molten ice spat out from the dragon’s maw. The edge flickered with necrotic energy, almost like a cone of cold that wished to reach out and suck the life out of everything it touched.</p><p>Sylvanas slid under the attack, and two more arrows leaped from her bowstring to dig into the dragon's neck vertebrae.</p><p>It stumbled, but then its tail swung around like giant flail, ropes and tent cloth hanging from the spiked length. The attack glanced off Sylvanas’s shoulder and sent her flying back. The energy flared inside her. Fingers brushed just right over the ground to angle her. Muscles tensed and flexed to catch the wind and bleed off momentum. Then feet slammed into the ground, tearing two lines through the ground. There was the flare of pain in her side, of bruised skin, torn muscles, and cracked bones. She could ignore it, push through, and keep fighting.</p><p>Two more blasts flew out, one missing Sylvanas and the other clipping her side. The front hurt, digging into her without thought or pause, but its grip didn’t linger.</p><p>Light lit up the night. Violet, red, and white energies flickered through the air in threads of woven sunlight, struggling to become something more. The pain didn’t matter. The fact her foe was an undead dragon didn’t matter. It stood before her. It posed an existential threat to her entire army. And if they died here, her people would soon follow.</p><p>Failure was not an option. She must succeed.</p><p>Sylvanas ran forward, wrapped in the light of dawn itself. She dove beneath the foot slamming into the earth and leaped between teeth slamming shut. With a flex of muscles, she jumped into the air even as the head rose, scrambling up on top of the dragon’s head.</p><p>The creature growled and tossed its head like a dog but couldn’t dislodge her. As if sensing its impending doom, the dragon reared back on its hind legs, towering over everyone, wings spread like great tattered sails. She didn’t care.</p><p>Sylvanas spread her weight, planted her feet, and fired sunlight arrow after sunlight arrow into the dragon’s skull. Bone fractured and broke under the repeated impacts, flying through the air and exposing the interior, empty and glowing with undead light. The beast wasn’t alive, a head-wound alone wouldn’t stop it. But in the Retreat, she had learned how the necromantic energies relied on a structure to scaffold them on. This dragon was magic and power bound into a shape that hung off bone and scale. Break enough bones, and it all fell apart.</p><p>Sylvanas grinned down at the base of the skull from inside.</p><p>She nocked an arrow, drew it back, and loosed it at the point where cranium met vertebra. Bone crumbled and broke. Without support, the skull fell directly into the spine and ribcage.</p><p>Necrotic magic flared, the light of dawn surged, the night sky retreated. From afar it looked, for the briefest of moments, as if Sylvanas was the morning sun framed against a clear blue sky. The night then collapsed back in as the dragon fell apart in a tumble of bones.</p><p>Sylvanas landed in a tumble that ended with her on her side, staring out at where the northern front still fought. Magic flared in colors of bright yellow and mystical purple, batting aside the undead's attacks. Arrows flew through the air, singing the piercing song of death. She grunted, and pushed herself to her feet, ignoring the sensation of bone sliding against bone in her right side. It hurt. Her whole body hurt.</p><p>She rose to her feet, brushed the worst of the dirt and grass off her tunic, and nodded at Renthar, still surrounded by swirling sunlight. “Ranger-Lord Hawkspear. I noticed you had some trouble and came to help.”</p><p>“It was much appreciated, Ranger-General,” Renthar said. His bow was in hand, his clothing was torn and ruffled, and his body was littered with minor cuts and bruises. He looked over the palisade where the ground beyond was a carpet of still bodies. “I think we should be well situated for now. Some were tiring, but they’ll wish to live up to the example you set for them. The north will hold for now.”</p><p>“Well, in that case, I should get back to the command center.” Sylvanas hummed as she ran a critical eye up and down the ranks. Most looked like they could keep going, but the signs of true exhaustion were starting to show in a few places. A company firing out of time here, a ballista bolt fumbled there.</p><p>She leaned in close and whispered. “Maybe rotate a few out for light duties. Corpse collection, quiver ferrying, food and water, that sort of thing.” She pointed them out with minute finger gestures and eye-flicks. “Do it in better words though.”</p><p>Renthar snorted. “I’ll try, but I’ve spent most of my time out far-ranging in the Hinterlands. Not too good at putting things diplomatically.”</p><p>Sylvanas quirked an eyebrow. “You sell yourself short. Why do you think I had you handling the Wildhammer for so long? You’re even better than me.” That she was not known for diplomacy and kind words went unsaid.</p><p>Renthar let out a bark of laughter and nodded. Sylvanas patted him on the shoulder and turned back south. None of the soldiers had heard what they had discussed, but they would have heard the laugh and drawn courage from it. That was half the game now, keeping morale up and exhaustion down. They were trapped in, with no way out, no room for grand strategies or tactical brilliance.</p><p>The question was just how long they could last.</p><p>The roar of dead from the south rose in volume. Sylvanas broke into a flat sprint. Her ribs creaked in protest but were easily ignored.</p><p>Sylvanas arrived to find the southern palisades overrun.</p><p>The abominations had been kept in reserve, and now the putrid corpse-monsters laid about with whatever was close at hand, and on every side, they were supported by spirits and zombies and skeletons. Above, gargoyle and dragonhawk dueled, kept away from the rest of the fighting.</p><p>To their credit, Lor’themar and his troops had made the undead pay dearly for it and still fought even now. But the front had been pushed back. The soldiers in the front made judicious use of their swords, supported by irregular staccato fire from the archers in the back ranks. No firing blocks, the enemy had closed and now every shot counted. The ballista had been broken and set alight so that they couldn’t be turned around. The same couldn’t be said for the dead. Some were burning, others had been pulled back. Most just lay where they fell, waiting for necromancers to raise them.</p><p>“Sylvanas!” The roar of rage drew her attention.</p><p>Arthas stood just short of his front line, his eyes twin pits of blue balefire against corpse-pale skin that glowed with an inner light He was larger than before, his shoulders broader, limbs longer, and muscles bigger. His blackened steel armor didn’t fit as well, almost parodic in how it hung from his malformed body. On his chest she could the wound she had dealt him. It was a twisted scar that pulsed with fel green light. The grin he gave her was twisted with madness.</p><p>For a moment Sylvanas was not looking at the scourged prince. It wasn’t human, not anymore. Its body was a twisted and malformed thing that belonged at the bottom of the sea. Its surface was a patchwork of skin and chitin and scale that had no rhyme or reason, each beginning where it wanted and sometimes continuing over each other like many layers of cloth. The eldritch thing grinned at her, eye burning with the same hellish sun-fire as the two green swords crossed in front of its brow. The air was filled with screams just at the edge of hearing, gods and demons trapped inside the monster in front of her.</p><p>Sylvanas blinked and forced the vision away, mind scrambling to explain what she had seen and why. It was just like back then, in the battle when her power had first awakened.</p><p>“I’ll make you regret all the pain you’ve caused me.” Arthas had forced his way through the ranks. His sword was now coated in the blood of the three Farstriders who had tried to stop him. The press of the dead kept any more from sacrificing themselves. “By the time I finish you will beg for the suffering to end.”</p><p>An arrow formed and nocked itself to Sylvanas’s bowstring. She stood straight-backed and tall, cleared, and focused. “You made that threat once before, and I sent you running with your tail between your legs.”</p><p>Instead of giving in to the cold rage as he had before, Arthas just grinned at her. He charged and was suddenly in front of her, blade rising from the ground for a strike.</p><p>Sylvanas barely dodged out of the way, and the flare of pain from her thigh told it hadn’t been clear. There was a long cut stretched across her leg, and part of her knew that, if it weren’t for her power and skill, it would have killed her.</p><p>Arthas didn’t give her time to think, sword striking out with the fury of fire.</p><p>Sylvanas ducked under the blow and two arrows shot out from her bow. Arthas batted them aside with a flick of his wrist and closed the gap once again. His sword was a striking eagle, swooping in and out again and again as its tip sought her torso. She turned strike after strike aside, bowstave slapping against the flat of his sword again and again. It was all she could do to not get skewered. Then he began to transition between strikes.</p><p>A low strike turned into a rising cut into a feint into a thrust into a low strike. From one move to the next, he moved with the grace of a lynx, adding masterful dexterity to an inescapable tempo.</p><p>How was he doing this? He hadn’t shown speed or skill like this before.</p><p>Arthas roared and brought his sword down in an overhead blow. She dodged and felt strength beyond what the undead prince should have had in the wind whipped up in its passages. The attack swept up and she went under, only to leap away as it came back down.</p><p>There was a might to him now. A savagery and ferocity that she knew, instinctively, came from something other than the power of undeath. Her mind recalled the vision from scant moments before and quailed at whatever twisted horror he had subjected himself to.</p><p>“Can’t keep up, can you?” Arthas snarled. “I’m going to enjoy making you scream!”</p><p>Sylvanas snarled and her essence surged. The threads of light around her coalesced into a singular burning source of color, tongues of gold and white flames wafting from her skin. The next blow she pushed against with all her might. Undead flesh tried to hold firm, but with a scream she forced the sword away, leaving the prince wide and open. Light formed into an arrow in her hand and she thrust it into where his arm met his torso. Sunfire forced its way through the chainmail and into his armpit, digging deep until it hit bone.</p><p>She leaped back as Arthas roared, more fel green light leaking from the open wound. The essence inside her swirled, as eager as ever to leap to her command, but she could feel it growing shallow, strenuous use draining the font of power far faster than it could refill.</p><p>Sylvanas looked around her, and her heart sank as she saw her troops had fallen further back. The dead made a great ring around her and Arthas, streaming past to push Lor’themar’s lines in a relentless tide of bodies. Already more were rising to join in, necromancers reanimating damaged troops and raising newly fallen rangers. In the heat of their duel, she had no time to give attention or thought to the greater battle.</p><p>Arthas chuckled, dark and deep even as he cradled his wounded shoulder.</p><p>“Not so strong now are you, elf?” He said. “The trolls were kind enough to provide more than just their bodies to me. With the power of their gods trapped inside me, you and your armies will fall before me. Then, oh then it will be your people’s turn. I will break Silvermoon under my might. Every building shall be reduced to nothing but rubble and every man, woman, and child, every human, elf, and troll, shall rise in eternal servitude to the Lich King!”</p><p>Light bloomed in the south. It was the light of the moons, silver and blue and white purple, the Pale Lady and Blue Child mixed as one in ever-changing patterns of light and beauty. It swirled and shifted and turned in upon itself in a never-ending chaos of color. Almost as if by accident, from the changing mass emerged four beasts. An eagle, wings spread wide with power. A great bear roused to wroth and fury. A lynx with eyes gleaming in the night. A dragonhawk, scaled body alight with fire. Beneath these great beasts stood a figure, clearly visible over the back ranks of the dead, now cast into stark relief by burning silver light he cast. He was tall, standing broad-shouldered and proud, a forest troll whose age had not bent him, even as it had wrinkled his skin and turned his hair grey.</p><p>“The Amani serve no one!” The figure shouted. He raised an arm to the sky and it transformed into the claws of a great bear. “Come children of Zul’Aman, show this thief and killer the rage of our people. Da Amani de chuka!”</p><p>“Da Amani de chuka!” Cried two thousand trolls, screaming with rage as they followed their leader, Zul’jin, into the back ranks of the undead horde.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Zul’Aman was not supposed to be fallen. The temple fortress was not even supposed to be called Zul’Aman. Once the capital of the Amani Empire had stretched from the edge of what the humans called Darrowmere Lake to the shores of what was now the Forbidding Sea, so great and large as to be a kingdom unto itself. So few remained who even remembered the Zandali names of the land of old, let alone the majesty they once held. There were no great statues of gold and jade, no housing complexes adorned with silver and emerald fetishes, there for families to invoke the favor of minor Loa. Now...now the ‘Temple City’ barely stretched beyond the six temples it centered around. Now what was once the seat of the Amani Loa and their priests were known as little more than a bastion of wood and stone, nestled among the mountain peaks and the pine forests. What had been just the Great Ziggurat of old was nothing more than overgrown totems, crumbling walls, and wooden huts. The east harbor was gone. The barracks of Zul’Mashar was all but lost to the humans of Lordaeron. There was no sign of the pilgrim’s path, which had once stretched down the coast to Jintha’Alor. It was as if the People of the Forest had never been anything more than a people confined to the mountain highlands.</p><p>Before the dead came, Zul’Aman had been a ruin. After, it was an abattoir.</p><p>The lakes and rivers of the city were filthy with blood and rot. Houses burned and guard towers lay toppled to the ground. The shrines were ransacked and ruined. The only reason dirt and grass were visible was that there were no bodies to hide them. The once-human prince and his necromancers had been meticulous when collecting the dead. Yet for all the destruction, the gates stood open and the walls were untouched by siege or assault. The last bastion of the troll empire had not fallen to the axes of outsiders, but to treachery from within.</p><p>The troll known as Zul’Jin growled as he looked over at his ruined home. His one remaining hand shifted its grip on his ax. There was still the phantom feel of his lost arm, imaginary fingers wrapped around another ax he hadn’t carried in ten years. He stoked the rage within him, the indignation at the insult dealt to his people. He fed it, like a fire devouring all that touched it. He needed that anger, that fury.</p><p>It was all that kept him from weeping.</p><p>Malacrass and his priests had sold them out.</p><p>The arts they had turned to in recent years were strange even for witchdoctors, but it had been worth it in the years after the Second War, with the numbers of their people so reduced. The elves were kept back and away from the mountain homes of the Amani. Every month another of the invaders’ patrols had been sent home bloody and fewer in number. They were on the path to avenging seven thousand years of humiliation. And then the undead had come, and it had been almost perfect. They had just needed to wait, to watch as the dead broke Quel’Thalas and left the Holy Land open for taking. But now any hope for justice and restoration was undone.</p><p>How long had their corruption gone unnoticed? How long had it been since the Hex Lord had joined hand in hand with demons? How long had he plotted to seal the gods and steal their powers? What promises had he received to be willing to give aid to the demon and the dead? He had locked the gods away within a once-human prince and himself and traded the lives of his people for it. Was power more important to him than revenge against the elves?</p><p>With a roar, Zul’Jin buried his ax in a nearby tree. It didn’t matter. The answers didn’t matter. For as much as blame lay on the traitors and defilers, some part of it lay on him.</p><p>For ten years he had thought the quieting of the gods was because of him. That they refused to speak and perform all but the most basic of blessings because of the humiliating defeats and deaths the Amani had suffered. But now he wondered if Malacrass had had a hand in it. If Zul’Jin, in his stewing anger and thirst for revenge, had missed the signs of demons working their way into his people. Even now his thoughts were on the enemies who had killed his people and not on those left alive. As Warlord, were they not his responsibility?</p><p>“Zul’Jin,” a voice said, and he looked up to meet the eyes of one of his Amani’shi. He was young, this child wearing the garb of a soldier. So young Zul’Jin half expected the tattoos to still be wet. Were there so few Amani left that they must draw on boys and girls just past adulthood? Even still, his tusks were longer than Zul’Jin’s. The old troll had broken them in supplication to the Loa, begging for some sign so that they’d speak to the Amani once again. He had been met with silence.</p><p>“What do you want?” It was a struggle to speak just a growl through the memories of shame and anger. The boy was not the source of those things. He did not deserve his warlord’s rage.</p><p>“Most of the scouts have returned with survivors,” the boy said. He glanced at the Lake of Zul’Aman for a moment. “Many of them want to fight, although most are in no shape for it.”</p><p>Zul’Jin blinked in confusion. He had sent out scouts for survivors? He didn’t remember that.</p><p>After the Scourge had left (not retreated, left), he had been wroth with hatred and anger. Zul’Jin knew himself well enough to not trust his judgment at the moment. So he had given command to Daakara and went off to sulk. That had been three days ago, he realized.</p><p>He had spent three days mourning his people’s lost greatness, nurturing his grudge against that boy prince who had defiled their bastion of refuge.</p><p>Zul’Jin chuckled, dark and bitter. Their bastion of refuge had just corralled the northern tribes into a trap. They’d been fish in a pond just waiting for the spears to come out. There’d been no warning at all, not even a notion that the Scourge had finished with the elves. That brought ill fortune for the northern holds and villages. Most of his people had pulled back to their walled fortresses and holdouts, but there were always those foolish enough to stay behind. Maybe more had survived hiding in the mountain forests than behind stone walls.</p><p>How many were left, he wondered. Come next year, would the children of Zul’Aman be so reduced as to all fit within the Shrinelands as neighbors to the Wildhammer? Would there be enough resources for them all? And if not, how could they ever hope to retake their ancestral lands?</p><p>Which pained him more? The lost life, or the lost chance of revenge?</p><p>Zul’Jin knelt next to the lake and ran his fingers through the bloody water. He was old. His hair had turned grey when the orcs first came. Now, the snow-white locks hung like limp vines over his face. His one eye glared at him, dark and accusatory over the shawl pulled up over his nose. There should have been tusks poking out from beneath the cloth. There should be another arm to go with his right. But it was right there was only the one eye.</p><p>The arm he had sacrificed to escape captivity. The tusks he had broken off in futile supplication. But the eye had been the price he paid for leading his people into that disastrous ‘Second War.’ A mistake he would always remember. Pfah, even the name showed how foolish it had been. The second war between Human and Orc, with everyone else just accessory to it. A desire for vengeance and a better future for his people had blinded him to the dangers. He had rationalized it, reasoned it as simply striking first at a foe his people had long fought against. Small comfort to all the trolls who had died before the elfgates. That foolishness left them even weaker now. Even if they tracked down and finished off the undead, so what? His people would be too weak to do any more, and by the time they’d recovered their enemies would have as well.</p><p>He wanted a future for his people. He wanted them to be safe, prosperous. He wanted at least some of the old glory to return to them. He wanted vengeance for the unjust dead. To go to war was to risk it all. But to sit and hide was to be whittled away by the passage of time.</p><p>“What will you have us do, Zul’Jin?” the scout said. Ah, he had forgotten the boy was here. He looked so unsure, so nervous. But there was bravery there, in his eyes. “If you bid us pursue the Scourge we will. If you say we hide with the survivors, we will. You are our warlord. You hold our people’s fate. For whatever you desire, we will follow you.”</p><p>The old troll with broken tusks, a missing arm, and one eye, breathed out as he rose to his feet. He had cast aside his name long ago. His title was all he was. He was Zul’Jin, a witchdoctor and a chief. He was the Witchdoctor of the Amani. He was the Warlord of the Amani. Just as he would tend to the sick and injured he would deal out death and destruction. Just as he would execute the will of the gods, he would bring glory to his people.</p><p>He would preserve his people and bring them some measure of justice.</p><p>He said as much to the scout.</p><p>The boy grinned, and when he spoke it was with a voice deeper and more ancient than anything Zul’Jin could imagine.</p><p>“Excellent indeed.”</p><p>Nothing about the boy changed. His eyes were still blue. His tattoos were still of white and silver. His purple mohawk still rose proudly from his scalp. But suddenly it was as if a thousand thousand nightmares stood before Zul’Jin, wearing the face of a troll dressed as Amani’Shi.</p><p>“I am but a wisp of a fragment of a god long dead,” the Thing That Was Not a Troll said. “Like all of the world before I am dead and lost. But I live still to see my Chosen defy existence. You will be an excellent champion.” The thing grinned. “Go, oh Child of Luna. Defy the world that would not fit you, and show it the divine wrath and mortal kindness of the Lunar Exalted.” And then it was gone.</p><p>Zul’Jin let out a shuddering breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it.</p><p>He barely noticed the light that now surrounded him, distracted by a wholeness he had not felt in years. His tusks jutted out strong and proud from his face, and both his arms flexed with strength. He had thought them lost beyond the reach of troll regeneration and magic to heal. But now he was whole again, his injured body once more matching the troll he was.</p><p>He did not see the silver symbol that embossed itself in front of his forehead; a threefold image of a crescent moon, an empty ring, and a solid disc all coexisting within the same space.</p><p>-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-</p><p>The mountains had stood unchanged since shaped by the Titans in ages past. The first to trod their lengths were the aqir, who had neither name nor record for them. The peaks had not served as hives or temples or hunting grounds, and so they were unremarkable. After, in the time of ancient Aman, that first empire of forest trolls, the mountains were called Zandwakorin, the East Wall Mountains, for they had been as walls between great Zul’Aman and the eastern ocean. Even today, the steep and rocky cliffs still bore that name, even if they guarded against every direction. To the Quel'dorei they were Danithas‘Thalas, the Forest Peak Home. To them, the pine-forested slopes had always been home to their most persistent foe. But still, the mountains stood unchanging, uncaring of the world as it shifted around them.</p><p>Even now, as troll and elf fought against the living dead, they did not care.</p><p>Even now, as a once-human prince roared with the power of chained gods, they did not care.</p><p>Even now, as the power of Sun and Moon made manifest waged war among their valleys, they did not care.</p><p>They were here when the world was shaped. And they would be here when it ended. But for those who had not been here when the land was crafted, and would not be here when it crumbled away to nothing, this moment was one to care for.</p><p>Sylvanas’s bow lashed out. Arthas’s sword caught on the arm and was forced to the side, leaving him open as Zul’Jin rushed in. The troll only had time for a few swipes of his arms before the prince recovered, and was then forced back by quick, jabbing thrusts. All he had gotten were a few light scratches on the prince and a cut on his own shoulder.</p><p>Zul’Jin fell back, a growl low in his throat. He barely looked like a troll anymore. Even crouched over, he was more massive than any troll she had seen before. His upper body looked like that of a bear’s, covered in black fur with hands that ended in spade-like claws growing from his fingers. Beneath the fur was a layer of scales and feathers, extending out into two great dragonhawk wings that rose from his back. His head was a strange mix between the two creatures, fur and scale and skin painted into fearsomely beautiful features. He barely looked anything like the aged troll warlord. But Sylvanas saw his bearing, saw the scared right eye sealed shut forever, and knew on an instinctual level it was him.</p><p>By now all three of them bore the signs of combat, nicked and bruised and worn.</p><p>The troll glanced at her with his one good eye and snorted in disgust.</p><p>Sylvanas frowned. She didn’t like him either. Too many elves had fallen beneath the axes of his trolls for her to feel anything positive.</p><p>Silver and blue light swirled about him as he circled Arthas, akin to the gold and red that wrapped around Sylvanas as she gauged the undead prince. Around the three, elves and trolls hacked away at the undead, trapping the monsters between them. They did not work together but did not seek to close with each other. The mutual loathing the races shared for the unquiet dead was clear to all.</p><p>It was enough to hold back their age-old grudge. For now.</p><p>Arthas moved to keep both Sylvanas and Zul’Jin in his peripheral vision. His lips stretched into a rictus grin. “Now isn’t this a sight. Troll and Elf working together. I must admit I’m surprised. I’m flattered. In less than half a year I’ve overcome millennia of hate.”</p><p>Sylvanas snorted. As if.</p><p>“Don’t mistake this, butcher,” Zul’Jin rumbled. When he spoke it was like gutter gravel crunching underfoot. “The elves will answer for their crimes, in time. You just get to go first.”</p><p>“Lucky me then,” Arthas grinned.</p><p>He lunged at Sylvanas, blade striking out in a dizzying pattern, leaving shallow, bleeding cuts across Sylvanas’s arms. She had no choice but to fight defensive, feet dancing across the ground as she weaved between the blows she could not parry with her bow. Then suddenly he broke off, whirling to the side, and near half a ton of transformed troll barreled into Sylvanas.</p><p>She leaped over sweeping claws, kicking off Zul’Jin’s back as he passed beneath her, almost clipping her legs against his wings. Her injured thigh flared with pain and Arthas struck while she was in the air.</p><p>His blade scored a deep cut along her shoulder, but he was already rushing past and she only had time for a single arrow that glanced off his shoulder.</p><p>She spun as she landed and was treated to the sight of Arthas closing in on Zul’Jin. They were in the melee for the briefest of moments, his sword striking the talons of an eagle, cutting into the troll’s side again and again. Silver light flared, fur and scale-covered limbs blurred like quicksilver, and four limbs struck at the undead prince from impossible angles. He fought the attacks off with unnatural speed, strength, ferocity, and cunning, but a few blows still slipped through. With a roar he kicked his foe away, clearing more space with swipes of his sword.</p><p>Arthas glared at his foes, armor now rent and torn in places. But as distorted as it was his body looked barely worse for wear. The troll’s flank, however, was covered in ruby fresh blood that dripped from three long, deep gashes in his side.</p><p>Whatever power had blessed Sylvanas and Zul’Jin made them more than a match for anyone else, but the stolen power of the troll gods made Arthas just as strong. Every exchange he came out the better.</p><p>“This isn’t working,” Sylvanas growled.</p><p>Zul’Jin scoffed. “What do you suggest, elf? Your people have never been shy of finding new ways to fight mine.”</p><p>Sylvanas glanced at him, form shrouded in silver light, trollish nature barely visible beneath layers of fur and scale, and her vision changed for the briefest moment. A man who was as much a beast as he was not, fish and bull and human merged into a singular being of savage beauty, wrought into the image of Luna the Bloody Huntress. A soft layer of moon silver fur covered a chest of nut-brown skin, giving way to a back of rainbow scales. He glanced at her, and she saw kind warmth and furious anger under a brow of curving antlers and silver tattoos, an ally and friend who even now when all hope was lost, fought with her against the breaking of the world. Sylvanas blinked, and the sight of her partner was gone, leaving only a troll who was, only for the moment, her ally.</p><p>Ally. Her mind caught on that word.</p><p>Some part of her rebelled at the notion. The woman who read too many casualty lists over the centuries, whose own family was dead because of the forest trolls, recoiled at the idea of making common cause with them. But the general who had seen her army ground down to a bare few thousand in a matter of weeks, who had been all but shattered in that desperate retreat and reborn in sunlight, sat on those emotions.</p><p>There would be time. Time to doubt, to consider, to reconcile with that anger and grief shouting inside her head.</p><p>Once her people were safe.</p><p>“We work together,” Sylvanas ground out. “Actually work together. Not just stay out of each other’s way.”</p><p>The troll stilled, the only sign of life the twitching of his muscles as he kept his eye on Arthas. The undead prince seemed content to let them talk. He was cautious despite how the fight had favored him. That meant it was closer than he liked to admit. She glanced around, and couldn’t hold back the grimace. The dead still pressed against Amani and Quel’dorei, their bodies littering the ground. Or perhaps he just needed to wait them out.</p><p>“He’s strong and skilled,” Sylvanas shook off the doubt. It would not help her. She stepped forward so that she was near shoulder to shoulder with Zul’Jin. “But we are both near his equal. No one can hold out against two peer opponents working in concert.”</p><p>“You would see him proved right?” Zul’Jin said. “To have elf and troll make common-cause with one another?”</p><p>“I would see the undead defeated and Quel’Thalas safe,” Sylvanas almost snarled. “If those aims require that I work with trolls, then I will do so. Would you not want the same for the Amani?”</p><p>Zul’Jin’s chuckle was as bitter as the sea. “It was such work to simply keep myself to attacking the undead.” For a moment she thought he would leave it at that. “What do you need?”</p><p>“Get in close,” Sylvanas said, “Don’t back off. Refuse to let him put distance. Keep him from maneuvering.”</p><p>For a moment he just stood there, head bowed. Then Sylvanas heard his breathing begin to quicken. His shoulders rose and fell faster and faster. His voice growled low in the throat. Claws tensed, wings spread wide, pulse raced. The light surrounding him intensified, silver whisps turning into streams of moonlight. Zul’Jin threw back his head and roared, voice underlined by the cry of bear, eagle, lynx, and dragonhawk.</p><p>“DA AMANI DE CHUKA!” The berserk troll threw himself on Arthas, limbs striking out with speed and fury.</p><p>The eyes of the undead prince widened, and then he threw himself into a desperate defense. His blue-glowing sword wove through its forms, a dancing cat moving to block or parry every strike sent at him. For all his fury, the troll could not land a single blow, even as the jagged blade slipped out again and again, cuts appearing one after the other to score wounds along his flanks. But he didn’t back off. Where before there had been a rhythm of clash and separation, now there were just two bodies locked on the edge of a brawl</p><p>Again and again, Zul’Jin tried to grab his foe. Again and again, Arthas slipped away.</p><p>Sylvanas drew on her essence and let it fill her. It seeped into her body, suffusing every limb and muscle. White gold flared so thick around her that she might as well have been breathing sunlight. On her brow, the golden sunburst sprang to life. Behind her, the banner of light took the shape of the roaring phoenix above ranks of rangers. An arrow formed in her hand, and like so many times before, she nocked it to the bowstring without thinking and took aim.</p><p>Zul’Jin and Arthas were close and did not stay still. Hitting just one and not the other would be difficult even for a supremely skilled archer.</p><p>Sylvanas had first picked up the bow when she was a child. The simple length wood had fascinated her, despite her father’s disapproval of the more martial arts. No, it was because of that disapproval she had gone down the path of a ranger instead of just dabbling in archery. The rest of her life had come from that. Months spent away from the Windrunner estate and the court of high society. Enlisting in the Farstriders under a false identity, then working her way up through the ranks until she was discovered. Staying with her brothers and sisters and arms despite the scandal it had caused. Serving in an almost ambassadorial role with humans and dwarfs. Repelling raid after raid of Amani soldiers. Rising to the rank of Ranger-General, and taking on the mantle of protecting all of Quel’thalas. All that and more made up Sylvanas</p><p>But before anything else, Sylvanas was an archer.</p><p>Sylvanas released the arrow. Like a knife, it buried itself into Arthas’s armpit. He gasped, stumbling as dead nerves and necrotic flesh seared with pain. Then he screamed as Zul’Jin stabbed the wound, claws digging deep into his chest, all the way up to the troll’s elbow.</p><p>Death rattled past the lips of the once-human prince, pale blue eyes staring down with incomprehension. Then he slumped and was no more.</p><p>The rest of the undead fell soon after.</p><p>-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-</p><p>Pre-dawn hung heavy and peaceful over the Forbidding Sea in contrast to the name. It was calm and placid, with only small waves rising to bump up against the sides of the canoe. Malacrass wondered why the humans and elves called it that. Then again, maybe there was something more out there in the depths. The former Hex Lord of the Amani had never gone beyond the sight of land, and even with the Zandwakorin towering above that was not far.</p><p>The ghost hovering at the prow of the boat glanced south, back the way they came.</p><p>“Arthas has fallen,” he said, voice barely a whisper.</p><p>Malacrass grunted and kept rowing, paddle dipping into saltwater on first the left and then the right side of the canoe. “Shame that. Your king had plans for him, right?”</p><p>“The Lich King has many plans,” the ghost of Kel’Thuzad said. “Some of them involved the boy prince, yes. But any one of the Lich King’s faithful may pass beyond usefulness. Plans can change, and my liege’s goals will be met.” On his ethereal, see-through form, the frown was barely visible. “Even if some of his servants need to be sacrificed along the way.”</p><p>Malacrass chuckled. “Worried about your reward, necromancer? Should have been smart like me, demand payment upfront.” He breathed in and felt the pulse of magic inside him intensify. The power of the Loa was a heady thing. The beating heart of nature and the world dancing among fog-shadowed trees and through misty graveyards. And there, underlying that winding rhythm of storm and forest was the sweet crackle of fel fire, binding the spirits and gods under his will.</p><p>“Oh?” The ghost looked at Malacrass. “You seemed reluctant to part with the Greater Loa. Do you not wish your demon masters had let you keep them for yourself? Did you not have plans for their potent power?”</p><p>Malacrass snorted. “The gods are not so easily kept. I could have fit one, maybe one and a half inside me. But no more. Akil’zon, Nalorakk, Jan’alai, and Halazzi don’t play well even with themselves. I got the better deal.”</p><p>“So you don’t regret giving them to Arthas? No lingering disappointment that your fellow priests could not have them?”</p><p>Malacrass threw his head back and laughed. “My only disappointment is that such potential had to be thrown away now. Zul’Jin had no love for the elves. A few more years and he would have willingly trapped the power of the gods himself. Oh, what the Amani could have done then is beyond imagining.”</p><p>“But the dreadlords forced your hand,” the ghost noted. “They demanded you move now, and as you already had some of their power, some of the rewards they promised, you had no choice but to obey.”</p><p>Malacrass frowned. His paddle stabbed deep into the ocean, kicking up a spray of surf.</p><p>“I know what you’re doing, human,” he said. “The demons may have had to buy my loyalty, but I’m no fool. It’ll take more than dissatisfaction to get me to raid Bwomsamdi’s hut. I have no interest in making the unquiet dead my master.”</p><p>“A shame,” Kel’Thuzad said. He turned, looking out north over the flat and calm seawater, to where a shadow was beginning to appear. “We are getting close. Are you prepared?”</p><p>“Yeah yeah,” Malacrassed waved a hand. He didn’t much care about old grudges of the Amani tribes, but it would be nice to see the Sunwell in person. “You do not need to worry about me. I know what to do. Still, you sure this is the right play? The elves care a lot about their little pool.”</p><p>“Completely,” Kel’thuzad said. “Silvermoon has not fallen, but the Quel’dorei have been too hurt to leave their kingdom for several years at the least. By that time our masters’ plans will be complete.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The man paused at the tent entrance and glanced over his shoulder. His companion grumbled at the torch-light but didn’t wake. Instead he curled in tighter on himself like a great cat, the sheets bunching under his fingers.</p><p>The man smiled, heart swelling with love, and for a moment he thought to stay, to steal a few more minutes before leaving. But the weight of duty pulled heavy on him, made all the stronger by the knowledge that every minute he tarried was one minute less for all of Creation. He sighed, and stepped out of the tent, letting the flap close behind him. At least, his love could get a few more minutes rest.</p><p>“We don’t have time for dallying,” a rough, harsh voice said, and the man turned to meet a wizened, grey-haired figure with a face as lined and wrinkled as the glaciers of the Far North. The old man wore a robe of green the same shade as his eyes, but unlike them it did not twinkle with stars.</p><p>“I know,” the man said, walking past the old man. How strange, that he would walk alongside one who orchestrated so much of his pain, so much of his suffering. “Are the lines holding, at least?”</p><p>The old-man grunted. “For now, but the soldiers grow tired. If there is to be any hope for Creation, we must hold them back for as long as possible.”</p><p>The man laughed. Already his essence stirred, solar energy swirling inside him. “And here I thought the great Chejop Kejak was not one to state the obvious.” His castemark formed on his forehead, the sunburst of the Dawn forged of brilliant white gold. The scent of gore was on the edge of his tongue, and in the sky, mad titans screamed with laughter fit to make his ears bleed. The sky was empty, no sun nor moon nor stars of any number to give it luminance. But still the front lines were made visible by the coruscating light of thousands of Chosen fighting as one, Animas flared strong and sure. He could hear the screams in the distance, as the mortal races fought side by side against the forces of the Void.</p><p>There were no gods, for they were dead. There were no demons, for they were dead. There were no spirits, for they were dead.</p><p>All that was left was the least of Creation’s people, and the Exalted who led them.</p><p>How strange, what one did when they stood on the edge of the End.</p><p>Sylvanas woke with a start. She cast about her tent, the sound of her breath heavy in her ear. The vision was already beginning to fade, leaving only feels of mournful love and resignation at the end of the world. But she knew, down to her soul, that it had been more memory than dream.</p><p>With a snarl, she rose out of her cot, threw on her clothing, and walked out of her tent.<br/>The mountain air was crisp and clear on her lips, and she could see the morning dew still lingered under rocky shadows. There was no hint of death or destruction, only the slightest touch of funerary ash.</p><p>Three days had passed since the battle ended, and in that time their casualties had been collected and sent on ahead. The freshly dead wrapped in blue cloth and the injured bandaged up as best as possible. The bodies of the undead had to be laid out in great piles, too many decayed corpses of varied origins to do anything but perform the necessary rites. The ground where the bonfires had been built were scorched ruins. The trolls had seen to their own, treating the severely injured and building small, personal pyres for each of their fallen.</p><p>When all was said and done, the only things left were twisted and melted metal. And a blade of jagged runes and baleful light.</p><p>No one knew what was in that blade Arthas had wielded, but none were foolish enough to touch it. Now it sat locked away in an iron chest, bound for the tunnels beneath Silvermoon City.</p><p>Sylvanas stared out over her soldiers as they packed up the last remains of the elven camp. The Amani had set up their camp not too far away but had kept to themselves. She’d seen more than one officer cast hostile glares at them. But it hadn't gone beyond that, so she said nothing.</p><p>Confusion and anger swirled around inside her. She had worked with them. Fought with and alongside one. There had been extenuating circumstances, but that did not change the facts.</p><p>It felt like a betrayal. She might as well have spat on Lirath’s grave for working with his killers. There had been no other option: to have done otherwise would have risked the fight, the battle, and the war as a whole. She could justify it however she wanted, twist the facts into new shapes or reframe them under a different light, but at the end of the day, she had worked with the forest trolls of Zul’Aman.</p><p>And they had won because of it.</p><p>Sylvanas was tired. Part of her just wanted to lie down and sleep.</p><p>There was a cough, and she turned to see Elsuris, standing nearby. Lor’themar had been injured in the fighting, and so despite his protestations had been sent with the rest of their injured. Renthar was off scouting the nearby passes, looking for any undead they had missed. That just left the experienced administrator to organize the packing.</p><p>“Ranger-General,” Elsuris saluted. “We’ve just about finished, and should be ready to pull back in a few hours.” She shifted and glanced at the troll camp. “Provided nothing happens.”</p><p>Sylvanas waved a hand. “We have little to worry. The trolls could have attacked us at any time, but they haven’t. They’re not going to change now.”</p><p>Elsuris nodded, although it didn’t look like she agreed. “As you say, Ranger-General.” She turned and went back to organizing things. She seemed more at ease ordering Farstriders around. Having to take command must have dealt with some of her worry over her new position. Or the woman was just better at hiding it.</p><p>Sylvanas sighed and leaned back against a wagon, looking out over the Amani camp. She blinked as she saw a troll step out and begin to slowly walk towards her. It took her only a moment to recognize Zul’Jin. Even untransformed, his towering form cut an imposing figure. He had both arms, but that wasn’t surprising. He’d had two arms and two wings during the battle, after all.</p><p>Zul’Jin stopped exactly halfway between the camps.</p><p>Sylvanas rose from her place and began to walk forward. “Keep packing,” she said to the nearby rangers, who had all stopped to glance between her and the troll. After a few moments passed, they resumed their tasks.</p><p>Sylvanas walked out beyond what remained of her camp’s palisade. The ground was no longer muddy with blood or choked with corpses, but the dirt was still churned and the grass was still a torn mess. Soon enough, she was in front of Zul’Jin. She was tall for one of her people, but the forest trolls had never been described as ‘small.’ He stood near head and shoulders over her, and refused to kneel or compromise on his towering height.</p><p>For a moment, neither troll nor elf said anything, simply staring at each other in the face.</p><p>Sylvanas broke the silence first. “Some would say I should thank you, for saving us like you did.”</p><p>Zul’Jin snorted. “They would be idiots to do so. Too much history between troll and elf for something like that. No, we attacked when we did because that was when the undead were most vulnerable.”</p><p>Sylvanas dipped her head but didn’t say any more. A history of hate made ‘thanks’ a difficult word. “We would have been dead all the same.” She glanced away, towards the east. “This isn’t an end to things, though.” In both senses. It wasn’t an end to the history between Quel’Thalas and Zul’Aman, and it wasn’t an end to the Scourge.</p><p>Zul’Jin nodded. “Aye, there still be plenty of undead left. But they aren’t all.” Sylvanas looked back and met his one red eye. For a moment, it looked as tired as part of her felt. “It was demons who directed the dead.”</p><p>A chill ran through Sylvanas. Suddenly, a dozen things that made no sense clicked into place. The unstoppable tide of undead that had sprung from nowhere. The orc internment camps that had been falling faster and faster over the past years. The way Arthas had slipped past each and every defense Quel’Thalas had. Demons were notorious for their guile, cunning, and trickery. But what could they possibly-</p><p>The chill turned into a glacier of ice. It froze Sylvanas’s insides and settled into the pit of her stomach.</p><p>“The Sunwell.” She was suddenly very glad they were already leaving.</p><p>Zul’Jin nodded, his own expression grave. “Since defeating Arthas, the gods have taken to speaking with me again. I don’t know what the demons plan for the Holy Land, but it can’t be good.” He looked north, past Sylvanas, and through the trees. Even though he couldn’t be more than a third her age, she was struck by how old he looked. His face was lined with crags and there was an imperceptible stoop to his soldiers. “I’ve no love for your people. No kindness to give after everything. But… Those without blood on their hands should not have theirs spilled. I do not think I wish hate on the blameless.”</p><p>“But you did at one point.” Sylvanas’s words were flecked with outrage, and indignation burned in her gaze. Zul’Jin had led the Amani tribes for decades, and even before the Second War, he had not been shy about striking at poorly defended settlements or outposts. Her family was far from the only ones dead by Amani hands.</p><p>The troll’s eyes met hers without flinching. “Both our peoples have done much to the other. Too much history to just forget. This whole land was ours once, and many are the names who fell to elven arrows and blades. Most of them weren’t soldiers.” He held the stare for a moment longer before looking down to look at his hand. It blurred silver, and the wrinkled green palm turned into the paw of a bear. “But I have not just changed physically. Seeing my people stand so close to the brink, so close to the final oblivion of death...It gave me perspective, you could say. Just as it did you, I imagine.”</p><p>Sylvanas wanted to deny it. Wanted to refute any connection between her and Zul’Jin. But she had fought side by side with him, felt that silver light brush against her gold. They were both different now. In battle, she had visions of things she could only barely comprehend. She had accepted the change, but the truth was she had no idea what she was now.</p><p>All that was left was the least of Creation’s people, and the Exalted who led them.</p><p>‘Exalted.’ What did that mean, beyond base definition?</p><p>“What have we become?” she murmured. She looked at her own palm, and for a moment thought to form an arrow of light.</p><p>Zul’Jin cocked an eyebrow. “It didn’t speak to you?”</p><p>Sylvanas blinked. “Who?”</p><p>“Nevermind,” the troll shook his head. “I think whatever I am, it is of the moons, although none of my people’s legends grant the Lady or the Child such powers like what happened to me. That has always been the domain of the Loa. You, however…”</p><p>“Am of the sun,” Sylvanas finished.</p><p>She knew, on an instinctual level, he was right. She wielded sunlight, and the mark on her brow was a sunburst. Gold and silver, sun and moon. There was a connection there, some duality or bond that flickered at the edge of her mind. When reached for it danced away, and refused to come closer when left alone. Part of Sylvanas thought of the Night Elves, the near-mythical ancestors of her people, but that wasn’t right.</p><p>Sylvanas sighed and dropped her hand. There was too much going on, too many things to worry about. For now, the greatest threat was whatever plans the demons had for Quel’Danas. She had accepted her change, whatever it was, and would figure the rest out later. Her priorities were seeing to her people’s safety. It would take them years to resettle their lands. It would be years before they even reached the Elrendar River.</p><p>She glanced up at the troll who had saved the lives of her soldiers, however incidental it had been.</p><p>“It’ll take a while for us to resettle,” she said. “Especially the foothills. I imagine Suncrown Village will be a ruin for years. I can’t say I’d be eager, trying to reclaim fortified mountain-land from you.”</p><p>Instead of meeting Zul’Jin’s astonished gaze, Sylvanas just turned on her heel and left. She didn't know how she felt, but there was no harm in stating a fact.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>And that is where this story finishes. I might pick it up again in the future, following either the Sylvanas and Zul'Jin or others. Part of the reason this is ending here is because I set out with the intention of having a finished work, and keeping a limited scope was good for me from a mental and writing perspective. So yeah, thank you all for reading.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>